Evangeline Athanasia Katherine McDowell
by Deviate's Fish
Summary: A hint of Hellsing, a dash of Tsukihime, and most of all Negima. This is a story of Evangeline's life.
1. Birth

Evangeline Athanasia Katherine McDowell

* * *

Notes: This is a record of the Quest RP of the same name that is currently taking place on a certain forum. If you wish to participate, please don't hesitate to ask. Or you can find it at forums. spacebattles com/ threads/ evangeline-athanasia-katherine-mcdowell-quest. 255281. Remove the spaces and add a period before the 'com'. There may be more threads built upon this, however.

Keep in mind that I write everything improvised.

* * *

She doesn't remember her first breath. She doesn't remember ever breathing at all. She doesn't remember a mother's warmth, a father's guidance, or even her own first laugh. She doesn't remember her birthdays, and she doesn't remember her first dream or nightmare. She doesn't remember all that well even her own name. They are merely syllables that come easily to her lips.

She remembers fire. Fire and darkness, and war. She remembers the screams.

Her memories are foggy and smoky as the skies above Rome that night she awakened. She remember being hungry and tired, and blood dripping from her lips. The ghastly shadow of war had loomed over her. For three days and three nights, the city burned as the conquerors pillaged. She had fled, with others, into the country side, confused and troubled.

Then darkness fell and her memories were even more faded than before. Wandering the lonely countryside, alone, weak and tired, but most of all hungry. Something bestial had awakened within her then, broken and forged by the fires of battle. She didn't know what she was. But did she even care, at this point?

…_Sharing the heritage of the Mage of Beginning, lost and abandoned. Possibility of unlocking eldritch powers unknown to mortals and powers over the material world. Able to draw power from emotions and elements of affinities. You are an accident, and an abomination in the eyes of all. Weaknesses many, mental strength weak, growth fast…_

It was a dusty morning, she noted absentmindedly.

He lips were cracked and dry. She hadn't bothered to lick her lips in efforts to moisten them for the past two days. There was a taste of dirt in her mouth. It was earthy and foul, and it reminded her of the smoke that seemed to be perpetually permeating the place. She had stumbled across the ruins of the city, so recently sacked, pillaged and burned by giants of men, who smelled ripe and disgusting, with caked blood on their blades and under their boots.

She sniffed, wiping away an itch that on her skin. It had gotten to a point where she had not paid any attention to her motions anymore. There was no purpose to focus, because all she could think of was how hollow her stomach felt. It was like a pit that never ended and never stopped aching. She wanted to cry, but after crying for so long, with dried trails all over her cheeks, just barely washing down the grim, she had no tears to cry.

She was tired and hungry, and alone. Rome burned and she didn't care. It was above her, something greater than she could know even when those on the streets around her cried and wailed about the end of the world. For some, this was a hell.

For Eva, this was where she was born, on the field of war and to the sound of the laments.

She was home here, painfully so.

But she could leave now, with others, as they flee this place. It would not do to stay around. The sun-heated stones of the streets hurt for her to step upon, so bare footed and unprotected, but it was not these little things that caused her to want to flee. It was the whispers of the oncoming horde that would take everything.

Really, there were two routes, but so many means of escape.

* * *

She was so _hungry_...

So _tired_...

_So ill..._

Her rippled reflection upon muddy waters were an expression of wary sleepiness, much like most of those who had stayed within the city. She was weak, her limbs handing uselessly to the side and her mind heated with feverish thoughts of monstrous intents. But she didn't know how to act upon them.

And this frustrated her to no end. She felt her heart twist as she snarled within herself, trying to end it. She wants it to stop! She wants to tear out the pain from within and...

"Hello," An aged, wrinkled man approached her from one end of the darkened alley. He was followed by a taller, leaner man, with deadened eyes and a passive expression. They were both covered in heavy leathers, though thin pieces of glinting iron shone from under their clothes. He smiled at her kindly, "Greetings. Are you hungry, dear girl?"

She nodded silently, clutching her own belly and just on the verge of ripping herself in two to end it all.

"Well, well, don't worry, come along," The old man smiled again. The laugh lines at the corners of his eyes creased in a pleasing manner, though it was strange that she could see anything at all, so far in this place so dark and cold and out of the Sun's reach. "You may come to my home, where we have bread. Warm bread and clean water."

She followed, her hands reaching out as if grasping for life. She couldn't stop herself from following. It was degrading and pathetic, some corner of mind muttered, but why did it even matter? She was only one step away from starving to death anyway...

"Sir, we're already filled up..." The taller, younger man grumbled rudely, only to be cut off by his senior.

The older man had waved it off, "Now, now. It'll be fine. More merchandise this way, see how light her hair color is? Rare, that is." He smiled down at her again, stroking a stray lock of mud covered hair, before gently brushing away the crusted mud and grim, to show an almost unnaturally shine of white-gold. It was a shine that was reflected in the man's eyes, something that came off as a gleam of something different. She didn't know what it was, but it was a curious, new expression for her to observe. And she would have been truly curious, if she had not been so hungry and... thirsty.

The men throbbed pleasingly, hypnotically, as something heated and warm flowed through them. It called to her, in a manner that a freshly baked cake might call. She...

"Ah, here we are," The old man interrupted again, this time her thoughts. He pulled out a piece of bread, slightly old and perhaps a little grey. "Go on, eat. Being so thin isn't good for you, dear girl."

She held it, feeling pleasantly warm, as something within her felt light, lifted and elated by this sudden generosity. Strange.

The piece was wet and cold, but warm to her fingertips. It smelled of something strong, something that stung slightly at her nostrils and at her eyes. But even through the dried tears, she still felt the urge to bite down and chew. The first bite was... underwhelming. It was just bread, with a hint of something else. A plant, preserved and concentrated into juices, her mind mumbled. She frowned, her head a little lighter still and her balance... off.

"That's it, eat it all, and don't make a fuss," the older man muttered as he petted her head. "You'll probably fetch a good price once we get around to the ports. Those sandy men pay a very good price."

..._thump_.

Her head ached. It pounded at her, wanting to be free. There was something within her, something that she knew was there. It was a primordial urge that she had kept under wraps, to survive in this ravaged city. It was breaking out. Something had let it out, or did she slip? What was in that bread...?

Conflicted, she frowns. She wants to do both, but the conflict and the near resolution within her seemed to have renewed a vigor for life and its struggles within her, despite how short she has known it.

The men take her expression for confusion, and the older man sighs and says in a softer tone-all the while still smiling nicely, "Don't fight it, dear girl. Give into it. This won't hurt and before you know it, you will be serving a lord or something of that kind, in a faraway land. Perhaps. Shh... shh..."

He pats her head gently, as if he were used to this, as if he were used to children.

She idly wonders-as her grasp on the roaring instinct within loosens-if it was because the nice, old man had been feeding other children like herself, or if it was because he has other children of his own. But it was only an idle thought that she gave little attention to. The only thing matter now was the matter at heart, or the all encompassing roar of her heartbeat.

..._thump, thump..._

It was like thunder, or the stomp of horses and the yells of men, as they opened the gates of this towering city to the conquering horde. It was deafening. She felt her eyes close as she tried to close it out, but she try as she did to ignore this, she knew it was impossible to ignore a part of herself as much as she ignored her hand or her foot. It was just not possible.

"...I," She choked on the dirt within her mouth, but started to say again, "I am s-still..."

"I'm not exactly made from bread. Just rest, dear girl, you have had enough already, and I am on short supply what with the-" He seemed to ramble on, about things uncertain and things unimportant. He seemed to talk about his life as if it were the most wondrous thing in the world. But compared to the hunger within, it wasn't.

It and he were both trivial.

She would not listen to another word, for what was there to listen to, but rambling? The pain of her head and the bursting feeling was overwhelming. One moment, she nearly fell, as weak as a babe and trembling like on a sickly fever, but in the next moment she had disappear, nearly like a shadow, and appeared before the older man's throat. She grimaced even as her teeth sank into the man's skin, wondering what exactly she was doing other than following her own instincts.

The man smelled ripe, from days without washing and fighting within his clothes, but his armor didn't protect the throat well. And he was tired, and unsuspecting. Even she did not expect for her body for fly forward, as if pushed by an unseen force, and to slam against the man so hard that he skidded backwards and knocked over several tiles from above. He groaned in pain for a moment, before gurgling.

He had thrown a solid, hurtful punch at her at first, knocking her lithe body off of him, but her teeth seemed to grow and sink deeper into his skin. She held on, by the skin of her teeth. But then as the second punch came, he was weak, frantic and waving incoherently at his attendant.

She had struck something on him that had kept him from making words and it almost intrigued her.

His blood was... not as tasty as she had thought. It was blood. It was bland like all things, she had thought. It tasted dirty and after drinking for only enough to sate her hunger, she stopped and spat anything still on her lips out in a stick, dark glob. She looked up at the younger, stronger man, and saw that he had drawn a short sword out, and held it with one hand, shakily. His lower lip trembled, but he didn't say anything. She could smell the troubled feelings rolling off of him, like something that drowned the young man in a pressure so much that it was difficult to breathe.

But at the same time, his hands made strange gestures, and he whispered strange things. A flash of light and a slight singe were all that occurred, yet the young man looked just as clueless as her. Her skin tingled and stung from... that... whatever it was.

She looked up and frowned again, taking a step backwards.

"H-huh, I-what are y-you?" The young man whispered, before backing away slowly. He shook his head, "N-no, you are a demon. Evil. S-stay away! I-I know what you are." He made the motions again, and again, she flinched, as if touching fire with her fingertips. "I... I never knew Church was good for something. Heh. I only went through the motions, but you're just a monster." He stepped forward.

The heated pain caused her to flinch again as he approached. She backed away quickly, only to stumble upon her own feet and falling down. "N-no..." She muttered, "I..."

"So you killed him, so what? The man was old, he was going soft," The young man growled, seemingly emboldened by her actions. "I told him he should have just picked your kind off of the streets. Useless, orphaned, abandoned things, you are."

She frowned. She could piece together the sounds of those words, but she could not tell their meaning. Yet even without the definition, the young man's tone seemed to be enough to cause her to pause and show her still-red teeth. She glared up at the man...

...and took another step back.

The man took a swipe at her lazily, caused her to rush backwards, even though she was still on the ground. She barely avoided the slice, but it was enough that darted away, shaking and stumbling like a drunkard, as she went into the darkness. "And stay away!" The young man seemed to say, before cutting open the older man's belongings for some reason.

* * *

She hid.

The pain was like stepping into the fresh sun, a painful experience that she hated until she understood the necessity and adapted. She didn't like it. What was it? The man had made a sign with one hand, like a cross, and muttered incoherent words. Were they a kind of strange power that she didn't understand? She did not even understand what she wanted at this point, but she was curious.

Yet she hid, because she was afraid. She had been split in between decisions, into indecisiveness, and she didn't know what she wanted as a result. She wanted both, to be in control of herself and to sate her hunger. But it was then that she realized that she couldn't have what she wanted. Perhaps she never could have what she wanted...

And so she went into the darkness, into abandoned structures that could barely be called houses, in the poorer districts of the city. She hid.

She hid, she hid, and she hid. She rolled and stumbled into a dark cellar, shivering, yet not cold. Just in pain.

"Eh? What's that?" Something called from the darkness.

She tilted her head, and yet she didn't answer, because she didn't understand that she had a choice, much less how to make a decision based on choices. She approached more cautiously than before, only now no longer so hungry for that essence. It was a warm essence that filled a dark hole in her heart, but she would never call like it were the painful sun. "I..."

"Eh? You?" _Clink. Clink. Clink. _"Oh, it's just you. Alright. What're you doing here, girl?" It was a strange looking man with pure white eyes for eyes-without the pupil at all. He looked even more wrinkled than the other old man, and many times more vicious... did he want something?

She asked that.

"Eh? Neh, you're fine. So what are you? I haven't seen one like you in a while," He asked.

She replied simply, "I don't know what I am, but I am Eva."

"Eva? Well, I'm Caecus," The man muttered, before harrumphing. "Are you alone here? Are you, perhaps, tired? Hungry? What are you doing here, little girl? I want to know. Most people can't find their way here, as it is..."

"I... don't know? I wish to sleep," She decided, before nodding in fulfillment about such a thing.

"Sleep? With all that blood down your chin? Not here! You do not know what you are, and you are an unclean one too. Yuck. I don't, despite what my friends might think, like that smell. Perhaps that's why you are so tired, eh? I suppose I could tell you a thing or two, but maybe you can do a thing or two, if you want to stay."

"I..." She paused, choosing from the words that she had learned in the past few days and what little scraps she could remember. She thought for a moment, before saying again, "I don't know. What is here? What am I? I am... I am lost?" She tests these words, feeling the heaviness implied by them.

He smiles, "You poor girl. Here is my den, my home, these dark ruins." He hobbles forward, like a bird without wings.

As he drew closer, saw him better. He wore a gray cloak and similar rags, tied together around him like a bundle. He was hunchbacked and he was poking at the ground with a stick, as if he were unable to tell what was right before him. And there was something glimmering and clear, strapped to his back, like a giant plate. It seemed to call to her, for it seemed to have coldness not different from her own innards.

"What you are is a blood drinker, a monster in the eyes of mortals," the old man croaks out, as he circles her slowly. "We are not so different, you and I, though perhaps I am more potent than you, a lost child. But I am not just a simple leech in the night like you. Now then, to stay here is to stay under my protection. For a child like yourself, it is a cruel world outside, so I offer it to you... And so you must do something for me."

She frowned and hesitated, wondering, "But... _Caecus_, what is a blood drinker? I have," she paused and thought for a moment, "I have many questions." And none of them were profound or meaningful, for she had known very little of anything, if at all. "Can you teach me?"

Caecus slammed the butt of his walking stick against the earth and snorted, "I am no satyr. Hah. Me? Teacher? But I will give you one lesson, girl. _Stay hidden_. The world of mortals is one fraught with peril. Monsters devour gods, but only mortals slay monsters. And you and I are both monsters."

"...Why am I a monster?" She whispered harshly. She had heard the word before, spoken like a curse. She had little understanding of its meaning, but the intent was enough. "What is a monster?"

"Ah, but to learn that, you will have to travel far," Caecus smiles widely. "And you will have to go to places I cannot. Such is the limits of monsters."

She frowns again, deeper still, "I do not understand."

"You are young. You will understand. But that will come later. For now, you must do me a favor and leave. I will guide you, of course, but there are places I cannot go, but perhaps you can. It is a simple thing, you need not fear. I only wish for you to seek out a being, for me to speak with."

"I..." She blinked. "I understand?"

"Good."

* * *

And so the old man guided her away from the ruinous city. The sky had cleared by the tenth day, as the smoke moved on to better places and the winds of change blew in. The old man guided her and she learned from this, the idea that she must stay hidden. There was the ominous 'or else' that hung above her like a guillotine so frightening in her psyche that as it built up, she started to instinctively seek out the shade.

The words stayed with her, like a mantra that she whispered in the dark winds at night, "Monsters devour gods, and mortals slay monsters."

They traveled into the foliage and into the darkness, and she learned to hide herself in the darkness. It was a simple thing, and the shadows seem to wrap around her like a cool blanket. She learned little about what else she was, other than that she was a blood drinker. And that she was a monster.

He provided for her along the long, dusty trail. She drank from small creatures, rabbits and snakes and goats and other such smaller things in the wild. Yet each time she fed, something in the back of her mind began to tug at her consciousness. With each feeding, the weight upon her seemed to grow, as much as the weight of a leaf might grow with an extra hair. She was sensitive to this, this much she understood.

As they days grew, they reached a sea of water. She had never seen such a thing before in her life, and it almost frightened her.

Without realizing it, she reached up, and grabbed onto Caecus' hand, and held on tightly. Something so vast and majestic could swallow her whole. She felt... small and insignificant and lost. So she felt no better than before.

"Eh, let go, Eva," the old man muttered before rubbing his bruised hand gently. "This is as far as I can go. Beyond these waters is the island of... greater things. Things of my kin, perhaps, though you will have to tread lightly. There is a lone mountain there, sealed away from my ability to enter. Within is the one who created me, my mother, if you will. Seek her out and give her this message, and perhaps, she will answer your questions as to who you are, really. For she is a mother to us all, in a way."

She blinked, a strange sense of curiosity overcoming her fears. But before she could say anything, all that Caecus left was but a cold wind, and nothing more. At her feet were two, strange objects. One was a small roll of papyrus, tied together at the center by a thin string of leather. The other was tiny, white chunk of coldness that seemed to be forever ice. She pocketed both, and then set off into the village. They were kept in a single, small leather skin that Caecus had left her.

It was a small, small village, so little that it would have sparsely populated even a single street in Rome.

Most of the people seemed to be ambivalent towards her, though a few had asked questions of her origin, and then followed that upon with questions of happenings in Rome. She had answered them truthfully, as she had little knowledge of how else to answer, and in turn asked how to reach the island, without the sea swallowing her up whole. Many of her fears of the large body of water were answered with jovial laughter, something that she found irritating and strangely... embarrassing.

The only fisherman available, and probably the only one willing to take a break from things to lend a hand at the instant, was a scruffy-looking, somewhat muscular and tanned boy some years her elder by the nickname of 'Percy'. He seemed to be something of a village outcast, as he didn't seem to have a family, but he worked well with boats and crafts nevertheless.

...And he smelled of fleshly gutted fish.

It was an interesting experience, in a way. It was the first time she expressed her disgust for something (the smell) in a way that even her clueless and inquisitive mind noticed instantly. That was to say she puked on his feet.

"Oh, what-why would you do that?" He moaned, aghast.

She had partaken in several meals with Caecus before this day, and it seemed like some of her meals were not exactly digested. That was, she seemed to digest slower than one might expect, and several day's meals, mixed together with her inner liquids and the acidic, bloody taste from within her, had all been thrown out of her lips in that instant.

If it had been any consolation (and it hadn't), Percy quickly returned the favor by puking on her bare feet too.

It was not a good day, she decided.

Moments later, the two of them sat apart on opposing sides of the rickety, little pier, washing their feet in the shallow water. She took this moment to look over at him, and upon seeming some remaining dark red splatters, scrunched up her nose and giggled, "Eew."

"H-Hey! You shouldn't laugh at me, when you are the cause of this," The young man huffed childishly. "Really, who comes to a fishing village and gets sick of the fish?"

She frowned and narrowed her eyes at him in a glare, but she could find no holes to poke in his argument. Yet she felt irritated by his words. "So what? You, you scruffy fish person!"

"Ugh, no one else wants to deal with a waif like you, so I have to take this up," Percy rolled his eyes. "Look, I won't take you there for free. It's a long trip and... well, it's not all good. The waters are not exactly safe these days. They say even Poseidon is mad at something or another these days, after Rome fell."

She perked up and asked, "Why is that?"

"Well, you know, black days, right? No? Er... it's what I hear from the older folk. Still, not exactly good to see the heart of the empire being gutted like that. I heard it was because of slaves rioting, is that true? You were there, right?" He pulled his equipment onto his little raft.

"I think so," She shrugged. It was all a big blur for her anyway.

He shuddered, "Ugh. Slaves. I hope we don't have any of them here. Never hear anything good about them other than bad things."

"They look like people to me," She replied honestly.

He nodded, but he didn't reply.

After a moment, they hopped onto the boat, which swayed slightly from the added weight. It was a small craft, but it would hold some fish, and things, enough to feed several people and perhaps even earn some kind of living too. There was a pair of tools for rowing the ship, but she knew little about it. The young man looked over at her again and sighed, "You're not going to be much help on the ship, are you?"

"Nope," She replied again honestly, with a smile.

Percy sighed. "Alright, fine, I'll teach you a thing or two about ships. Maybe you could help me anyway..."

"Erm..."

"What is it now?" He looked up tiredly.

She looked down, somewhat ashamed, "Can you teach me how to... survive on the water?"

He nodded, "Can't swim too? That would be the death of you on the waters. Alright, I'll teach you what I know. I might as well, but you probably won't learn too much in these few days."

* * *

Contrary to his opinion, she took to swimming like a fish out of... like a fish in water. It was just the simple method of learning how to paddle about with her feet and perhaps maneuvering about with her limbs, and a little introduction to the art of holding her breath, if she had a breath. Well, she didn't like spending time in the water more than necessary, as she soon found out that when she saw the unimaginable depths of the water it was frightening. Unlike the darkness of the night sky, which she could see into, she could not peer into the bottom of the waters. And the unknown darkness, these evil, nearly living tendrils, made her want to leave and stay in a dark corner within Rome, even if it were burning. At least it would be better than being wet, she thought.

But she endured and she learned, conquering a little of her fears and turning that more into dislike. She learned a little of boat rowing, finding that she could row it as well as Percy, strangely enough. He was surprised by this as well, but he didn't speak on it for some reason. She didn't have much time to learn how to catch fish, though it couldn't be too hard, from the looks of it.

She had been accustomed to taking a fish or two and saying that she wanted to eat them her way-by sucking them dry, really. It was disgusting to her, because of the smell and taste, but it seemed to be fine. No one seemed to really care, and Percy certainly didn't.

On the last day of her indentured work, Percy approached her. It was strange living in a small village hovel for this while. No one seemed to approach her, though after her first swim, people seemed whisper about her occasionally, usually about her hair for some reason.

"Come on, I did promise I'd navigate you to the island," Percy sighed. "I don't know what you want to find there, I've sneaked on there before. There's a small town, but they don't like outsiders. I'm not sure what you are looking for and I don't like asking, but the other things on that island aren't... good. They are things from stories. Bad stories."

He paused and looked into her eyes. After a moment, she flinched and looked away, frightened by his emotionless stare.

"...You're going there, aren't you?" He slapped his forehead and groaned, "Please tell me you're there for something else. Anything else? Even seeking the God of Many Devices would be better than this. Actually, maybe not-I heard he was crazy. Are you sure you want to do this? Do you even know where you are going?"

She shrugged, "I will go, I had said so already. But... I'm not sure where? I have to deliver a message, that's all."

"And you're seeking out those things, aren't you?" He groaned again, before rummaging through his things. After a moment, he pulled out a set of worn-down set of armor and a rather sharp-looking short sword. "Look, if you're going there, then I'll come with you. I can protect you from the things there. You're a good girl, Eva, there's no meaning to losing your life at the mouths of some... monster."

"...No," She shakes her head. "I am sorry, Percy."

"But, why?"

She looked down and kicked a pebble, an action she had seen some of the village children doing. She didn't know why she did it, but she didn't want to look up at the older boy's eyes just now. She looked aside and muttered, "Because I do not want you to be hurt, Percy. It is my place to go, not yours. It is my... my first task."

He stared at her for a long moment, before sighing, "Fine. I've known you well enough over this week to know I can't dissuade you. I'll wait at the beach."

* * *

They sailed to a small town, larger than the nameless fishing village that Percy called home, called Catania.

There was a large bay area, with many, many ships of all sizes. For a small boat of Percy's size, the harbormaster had forced him to take it to a smaller area, at the edge of the bay. It was dirtier and grimmer, and made from rough tools compared the main area, but no one seemed to pay attention to them all that much. Percy sighed as he tied his boat to a large, wooden pole that had seen better days, "I'll be here for a ten-day, Eva. Just... finish your task and come back, quickly. I know where you're going, so don't tell people about it. It's not something people want to know of." He looked up, passed the bay and the town, at the looming mountain behind them. It seemed to be leaking smoke slightly.

She nodded and walked away.

The town was in shambles for some reason, and her keen ears picked up whispers of dark tidings. People walked about, so many yet so peaceful, so strange. Soon her mind began filtering through all of them, and they became faceless, uninteresting things moving past her. There were so many, so frightened, yet there was a strange sense of peace here.

The town was walled, but only barely. It was only a stone wall that was maybe five or six times her height, looking all the centuries old and ruined, and stationed with only one guard at the gates. As she passed, she heard from above her, a voice that sounded like its nose was utterly stuffed, with a slightly whiny pitch, "Oh, look, another fool going on a fool's quest out of town. Oh, don't let me stop you, go right ahead on your foolish fool's quest!"

"I won't let you stop me," She replied honestly. She tilted upwards to look for the source of the voice and saw a lanky teenager with a rather pimply face and large front teeth. "But what is a quest?"

The man laughed, "Ha! More the fool you are. Look, that wasn't supposed to be serious. And honestly, I don't care if you are killed by monsters outside, they've killed enough of the townsfolk already. Plus, you're a foreigner. That's twice as bad. Well, now that we have war at our steps, it's not exactly all that good, but anyway! Go on, I don't care."

"Alright then," She nodded evenly.

"Alright then," The guard replied.

"Good day," She murmurs half-heartedly.

"Go drown yourself," The guard retorts, before turning away.

"No." She walked away.

And so she left, walking through a winding trail, but thinking more on the guard's words than on her own steps. Caecus had said that monsters devoured gods, but humans slayed monsters. So why then are monsters slaying the townsfolk? She had no answer to this, and only questioning it in her mind. She frowned as she was quickly shaken out of her mind by the tremors of the earth.

She looked up and saw that she was deep in the forest now, and her trail had all but disappeared. The mountain seemed just as distant as before and the sun was high in the sky, almost painfully to look at.

The sound of wood creaking was the only warning she had, before a giant club, more like the trunk of a tree than a real, mortal's weapon, flew over her, splitting several towering trees in half across their middle. It flew so fast that the air that followed it had blown her hair up wildly, and as she brushed her golden locks aside, she was knocked off her feet but a dull thud. The giant club had planted itself half-way into the earth, causing dirt to fly everywhere. Stones split and cracked around her and the forest was treated to the twin roaring sounds of giant creatures, easily twice the height of Catania's walls.

They were dressed in skins of humans, sown together by strips of leather and throwing fists at each other wildly. Each blow was like the thundering clouds crashing into each other above in the sky, only they actually shook the earth instead.

There were two of them, one slightly taller than the other. The shorter was more muscular and had a long beard that reached his knees while the taller one had a wild mane like that of a lion's. They had no finesse and no grace, but enough strength to shatter the very stones they stood upon and each to grab the towering trees beside them to use as weapons in an instant.

She shrunk back, awed but not frightened, for they were monsters, by a mortal's definition, were they not? They were like her, right? Still, the shadow of the foliage beside her were comforting to stand in...

...and then, all of a sudden, the giants stopped fighting. They both looked up and started sniffing at the air, loudly. Then they walked opposite directions, one towards the mountain and one away. The shorter than come away and towards her. He frowned as he approached, growling ever so slightly.

She watch him, curiously, but her eyes grew larger.

"I smells a human about..." He growled. "Where are ya? My belly's a rumbling..."

She shivered, but she knew she couldn't outrun him, with legs as tall as trees. Yet she could not hide, not well enough that he could not just sniff her out. And in the light of day, there were no shadows for her to melt into. She was trapped, in a sense, but she didn't really feel like it. Yet at the same time, her lips trembled as she tried to form words.

The giant had closed in, and she saw that he was different from her in other ways. Instead of two eyes like her, he had only one. He was so close that he could easily grab her, but he seemed to only frown more. His face scrunched up in confusion as his eye finally opened and he looked down at her, "Eh? You're not a humie. What're you doing here, little bug?"

"I am here to deliver a message," She puffs out her chest proudly and squares her shoulders in a manner she had seen elitist humans have done so in the past when surrounded by their minions. She crossed her arms and sniffed upwards, "It is important, for our mother."

The Cyclops blinked before turning away and shouting loud enough to shake the ground, "Oi! Gor'c! This lil' thing says she's got a message! For mum!"

The taller Cyclops stomps over and leans down, in an amusingly comic way that two grown men might be leaning down to be on the same level as an ant. He snorted to himself, muttering something seemingly confusing before brushing away the hair that had gotten stuck in his lips, "No! Really? What's it say, little girl?" He nudged the other Cyclops slightly.

"Hey!" The shorter Cyclops grumbled, "No pushing! I wanna hear it first!" He scooted closer and nudged the other giant away harder.

Gor'c growled, stood up, and pushed the other Cyclops away, "Go drown yourself, Mor'c, I wanna hear it first! I won the fight!"

"Hey! No you didn't!" The Cyclops pushed back hard enough to launch Gor'c into the air, before he landed and made a small clearing in the forest with his landing. "Now, lass, what's it say?"

She stared for a moment before shrugging and pulling out the small, scroll of papyrus. It was crudely fashioned, and it had crudely carved words in its lines, and the words were crusted and dark like dried blood. It smelled slightly sweet and nice. She blinked for a moment, realizing she could read this and read aloud, "To the little girl Eva. If you are reading this now, then you've gotten too curious for your own good. My words will only appear in the light of the lightning. If someone else is reading this, then bring it to the Mountain Aetna, and there you will be rewarded."

Mor'c the Cyclops frowned, "Eh, that ain't told me nothing. But how's this? I'll bring you to the mountain myself, little lass. You'll go much further if you ride atop my head!"

Suddenly, a giant tree trunk flew through the air and smacked the Cyclops' face, causing him to howl in pain and roll away, making a even larger clearing in the forest. Gor'c the Cyclops stomped back and smiled toothily (while missing several teeth, the remaining were rather sharp), "Nah girl, if you wanna go to the mother, I'll take ya. I'm the smarter one and I can get you around the guards."

"...Guards?"

"Oh, aye," Gor'c nodded. "There's a couple of Olympians guarding the area, ever since the new religions started laying siege on Olympus, don't you know that? Oh, you're probably too young... Well, there's at least one war god there, and there's a maze you gotta go through. It's not easy, so if you ride my head, I'll take ya there smoothly!"

"Bah!" Mor'c called from across the clearing, "She'd rather ride on me, eh, lass? I can beat all of them guards up easy. And if there's a maze, well we can just jump down the hole at the mountain top! I'm the tougher one, you see!"


	2. Aetna Part 1

"I would like to learn more, if that is alright," She asks shyly.

Gor'c assumes a smug expression, crossing his arms and looking down at the shorter Cyclops, and says, "Ha! The lass chose me! I wins! Not like there was any question who was better to begin with!"

"H-Hmph!" Mor'c harrumphs and slaps the ground at his side, causing a small earthquake. It seemed to be some kind of tantrum. He didn't look like he was going to stand back up either. "I-It's not like I wanted to take you anyway!" He stomps away in tears.

As they watched the giant stomp through the forest towards the direction she had came from, Gor'c muttered loudly, "I knews you were a smart one, ta choose me and all!"

"But we have only just met," she points out in confusion, in a rather timid voice, before asking, "Will he be alright?"

"Bah, don't matter. We cyclops can take a lot of hurt, 'n he's a crude one at that. He'll get over it when he gets hungry or something. Now, what's this 'bout the mum that you've got? A letter? Who's it from?"

She shrugged. "I was sent by Caecus, do you know him?"

"Caecus? He a blind man? Never mind that, hop on first, eh, girlie?" He dropped a hand onto the ground, large enough to have smashed a house. "We can talk on the way there, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"None o' that," Gor'c laughed softly as he dropped Eva onto his head. "Make yerself comfortable. I knows my head's a nest and all, but don't make too much of a mess."

She patted the cyclops' hair and blinked, "Wow, this is really soft."

"It's a thing about us monsters, we're soft until someone attacks us. Try to tear it or cut it, lass," He muttered.

"A-are you sure?" She had had problems with her rather long hair before. It would clump up due to the mud or get caught it something, and it would always leave her sniffing and blinking away tears. It hurts! "I... I don't want to..."

"S'okay, lass. I won't be hurt, I'm already passed my two hundredth birthday, not much can hurt me by this time," Gor'c mutters as he starts to walk lower and lower, until he was deep into the foliage and unable to see the sky passed the canopy of leaves above.

Determined to learn what the more experienced monster might teach her, she grabbed a strand of the Cyclops' hair and tugged. Before she tugged, it felt like a thin strand of some kind of silken substance. But the moment she did, it became like the rope that Percy used to tie his boat to the pier. It was strong, but more importantly, it hurt her hand. "O-ow," she stopped and let go and looked down. There was a thin, red line on her palms. It was a shallow cut into her skin. "... oh."

"Yeah, oh. Ha. So make yerself comfortable, and I'll let ya choose the path, alright?" The cyclops asked.

She nodded, surprising herself with her enthusiasm, "Alright!" And so the little girl grabbed onto two fist-fulls of the giant Cyclops' hair and he emulated all sorts of creatures, such as lions and elephants. It was an enjoyable moment, and for a moment, she felt something tickle her from her nose, but it was not it. It stung slightly, and she couldn't see clearly because she wanted so desperately to close her eyes. Something within her tugged and weakened at the sound of the cyclops' voice and she felt tears leaking out. She tried to brush it away, but the harder she tried the quicker the tears came. "Wha... why am I..." She hiccupped, "why am I..."

"Oi, you crying up there, lass?" Gor'c asked in an unusually gentle tone. "Is this your first time, riding someone's head like so? Where're your dad, lass?"

"I... I... uh, uh... I never h-ha-had a f-father..."

"Oh, sod it. Well, let it out, girlie, and I'll try to fill the gaps what I can. We can stop for today, and we can go to the mountain tomorrow. S'okay, you're not in a hurry are ya?" He asked.

She couldn't formulate a proper response, with each syllable caught in between sobs.

Gor'c took her back to his cave, some short distances away from the mountain that Gor'c called Aetna. It was close enough that she could feel a powerful pressure over her, even from so many distances away, like something around it was broiling and crackling, ready to devour her whole.

That night, Gor'c told her of stories. First, he told her about him-being a son of monsters. In ancient times, he had said, there were legendary monsters, born from the first deities and the first monsters, but they were mostly lost and dead to that era. Many have come and gone, and beings like Typhon do not have any direct descendants who walk amongst mortals anymore. Even the gods, according to Gor'c, were new gods. The god of war who watched over Aetna was a cruel being, a son of the son of the god Hercules. Aetna was a cruel place, one that was eternal pain and suffering for those locked within, but Gor'c told little of its history to her. It wasn't something to be repeated, he had muttered.

But then he started telling other tales, some strange, some fascinating, and some of his own. He taught her of how to better think for herself, how to lay traps in both the physical tense against enemies and how to trap others with words in a debate. And then he taught her, most importantly according to him, how to think and act for herself and how to be cunning.

"Perhaps being greedy and selfish isn't so bad," He had muttered, "If only a little. Balance it out, alright? I can care for you and I can care for myself, and so can you. But only you can decide which is more important. S'not that important-"

She giggled. "You said snot."

"-Oi, I'm trying to teach a lesson 'ere. Stop it," He rolled his one eye, though there was humor in his reprimand. He snorted, "The point is that you gotta think and you gotta think fast. It's nice you're wearing red too, makes you faster."

"Really?" Her eyes shone like the stars in wonderment.

"Ya, red makes ya go faster. So when I wanna go faster, I go clobber some things and get some blood on me, nice and pretty, see? Anyway..."

It dragged on, into the night, and for the first time in her short memory, Eva felt she knew what a home was.

"Alright, the god Hercule is pretty strong, and he takes his job seriously, even if he isn't all that nice," Gor'c whispered the next day to her as they navigated through some thick bushes. "So it's probably better to go around him. He can't be everywhere at once after all. No god can, but they can be fast."

"So what do we do?"

"Well, for one, we can be mad that 'Caecus' sent you on this mad quest. Hercule-obviously named with a lack of imagination-would kill you if he knew what you were. That old bastard Kaikias, er Caecius I mean. Kaikias was his father, I think... ah, well, see, he's one of the winds, does some spying on the gods for various... groups," Gor'c grumbled. "Don't ask me how, seeing as he's blind. Heh."

"...So, Hercule, um..." She looked about. The mountain was pretty much deserted.

"He doesn't know you're coming, and that's the way we like it. But he knows I am on the island, as I know him as well. See, I have had plenty of trinkets collected in my day, so you're going to go a different direction than me. I can't use something this small anyway." He flicked something at her. It was a small amulet, strung on a bronze necklace that was warm to her skin. It seemed to be pointing at the mountain. "That thing's good for only one thing, lass. It's fer finding the strongest guy around so I can fight 'em. But see, around Aetna, it points only to Aetna's pits. And in the pits, the strongest is the mum, see? I told ya a thing or two about traps, so you'll have to find your way about there yourself, but at least now you won't ever be lost, see?"

"But... what about you?" She wondered.

He shrugged, "Eh, I haven't slugged it out with the brat Hercule in a while. Look, be careful down there, alright, Eva? There's no telling what's trapped in that dungeon you're crawling into... and I'm too large to fit inside. Damn my size, eh?"

"... I will be careful if you will be too, Gor'c," She sighed and looked away. She didn't want him to see her blinking away tears again.

He smiled and stood up, "That's a good lass. Now, see, I don't know which entrance, takes you down, but all of them will take ya to the prison eventually, so I heard. Or you'll get lost forever. But it's a good thing you've got plenty of years to figure it out, eh? Don't die, girlie. I'll lay a trap or twenty and taunt Hercule away. Go on, get."

And then he was gone.

She looked down at the small compass inside the amulet before slipping the bronze links around her neck. There were so many places to enter from, some that seemed like crudely dug holes and others that seemed like ancient tunnels, and even a few that looked like natural occurrences. Gor'c had taught her a thing or two about cunning and she though, perhaps-just perhaps-there might even be a hidden entrance or two. But she had no way of knowing now... right?


	3. Aetna Part 2

She is close to the foot of the mountain, just as the slope has become noticeable.

The very peak of the mountain looks rather chilly and lacking in greenery, but you are in an area that is still covered in bushes and forests. There are several vein-like areas that run down the mountainside, like small rivers that have dried up. There are some smaller animals about, but nothing noteworthy unless she wants to have a meal or study what is about this region.

She can sense several birds flying around aimlessly and she can smell a stench of blood to one side of the mountain, towards the ancient, well-built tunnels. There are small tremors in the ground that she can feel-as she is connected to it with her bare feet-that feel similar to how it felt when the two Cyclopes were fighting, though to a reduced magnitude. The ground leading towards the crudely dug holes seem to be rather warm, but not in the sense of any heat lingering. There is a fresh, inviting scent coming from the seemingly natural holes that smells like flowers and spring. All the shadows seem to be equally inviting at this point and she has not tried to manipulate the shadows so she assumes she does not have such a capacity yet.

There are some smaller animal tracks leading towards the naturally occurring hole, and something that looks like splinters of wood leading to the crudely dug hole. There is a scent of cold iron coming from some place that she cannot decipher. Some parts of the mountain side seem to be warmer than others. She can feel the cold radiate off of the hailstone in the leather satchel, and it seems to have grown colder after she arrived at Aetna's foot.

She felt along the ground, closing her eyes and focusing on only one of her senses.

There were no sounds of wind as she drew her senses deeper, towards the mountain's rocky surface. There was no rush of water. She eliminated the sounds, sights, smells and tastes of her surroundings, leaving only one path. Her hands pressed against the rocky earth, and she soon traced her path.

It wasn't long, only a little after the sounds of fighting had ended, that she felt something click.

A stone she had touched, inconspicuous and small, had sunken into the earth, and she was awarded with the sound of stone grinding against stone. She opened her eyes, and saw a darkened path before her. It was an ancient ruin, a tunnel that had been long forgotten. There was a sound of dripping water now, and she saw moss covering all the floor and walls and ceilings.

A stench of death assailed her, her nose wrinkling at the irritation. It was not the stench that had greeted her in Rome, where bodies were burned alive. It was not a stench of burning death, but one of decaying death.

She looked down and saw a skeleton of a human, wearing only blackened brown rags, mostly decayed. There was no flesh left on the bones, and there was a sigh of age. Beside it, there were small piles of rubbish; it was decomposed and unknown materials. But the skeleton was still grasping what looked like a bronze torch and a bronze walking stick, which was as long as she was tall.

Along the walls opposite the skeleton, there were desperate scratch marks, ruining what little decorative markings that were carved into the walls. Beside the skeleton, there was some crudely carved drawings and words etched in. She could not real the words, and they were not in the language of Rome anyway, which Gor'c had taught her the basics of. It was a long forgotten language. She had never seen such markings before.

But the pictures, she could decipher.

A drawing depicted a human being impaled by spikes... another was of another falling into a pit... round boulders rolling out of nowhere, strange, winged beasts, creatures that the picture couldn't truly convey, and more. Finally, the drawing at the very bottom was a picture of a giant, beating humans against an anvil with a hammer. There may have been more, but whatever else was there was ruined.

It seemed that Gor'c's lessons on traps taught her well. She knew where to look and when to expect a trick or trap, just like he had taught her. These tunnels were filled with maze-like mystery, and so many twists and turns, with traps on the other side. There was a trick to this, as if one person had designed the entire thing...

And not all the little traps were still all that there. Many had decayed over the years, and have sprung off already.

She saw pit-traps that were uncovered and in plain sight, with many skeletons within, pierced by deathly, metal spikes. She also saw acid-covered darts that had been shot, some at walls and some at skeletons, having melted their surroundings. There were even hidden entrances that have been opened and then closed, killing those within.

But not all traps were triggered, and she soon found that it was a blessing to have found this staff outside. More than once, she had pressed down on a pressurized plate with it, and had to back away quickly, else the boulders that fell would smash her to bits. And more than a few times did she walk into a dead end, only to hear a distant rumbling...

It was frightening. Her heart beat rapidly. It was one thing to listen to stories and learn lessons, but it was another entirely to apply them. Still, after a few moments from each encounter, she would realize how Gor'c's lessons had been useful and now certain words had clicked together in a sort of epiphany.

For a moment, she felt that it was not her innate abilities that had guided her through this maze, but the lessons she had learned applied. And for a moment, she found that she wanted to celebrate this, but then the flooring gave away-

-It was not a trap! The maze was so old that parts of it had eroded away with time, and-

-She fell into darkness. Panting with the sudden thrill of danger, she crouched and stayed alert, quickly adjusting to the darkness. There was something here, with her. Something bigger than her, bigger than a man. It was growling and rumbling, its heavy breath laborious but brutal and angry. She couldn't see it, because it was outside the range of her vision, but she could hear it.

Then she heard something else, a screeching of metal against stone. _Screech_...

It dragged on.

_Screech_...

The sound was getting closer, as was the sound of heavy breathing. She heard the loud, announcing stomps that accompanied it along with the small tremors such a thing caused on the floor. Panicked, she backed away, only to back into a wall. It was a vast room, she saw, circular. As her vision adapted, she saw that there was only one way in and only one way out.

_Screech_...

The silhouette of the maddening beast approached slowly. Its growls rumbled louder and louder. Sticky drops of liquids dripped onto the ground in a trail as it approached, something bloody but mixed with other liquids. This bloody drool splattered all over the stone tiles, each sticky drop causing her heart to jump still.

The torch had been dropped some distances away, half-covered in rumble. Its light was dim, nearly gone, or simply smothered out. The bronze staff felt pathetically fragile in her arms now, but she hoped that it was unnecessary to protect herself...

_Screech_...

She righted herself and stood up, brushing away the dust on her short skirt and looked again. The silhouette approached closer, it was a beast at least three times her size, with great horns on its head. It dragged along a blade, but it was more like a giant slab of metal than any real weapon. It was monstrous, perhaps...

"Hello?" She called out, softly, with a slight tremble to her voice. "A-Are you-" Before she could finish, it had raised the slab and swung. It was a large arc, and the beast must have been more blind than she in this darkness because as she dropped it missed her by a few centimeters. "-Eep!"

The beast roared, vibrating and echoing, its bloody spittle flying about, splattering her. There was a smell of blood, not from its mouth but its torso. She shook, and instinctively shrunk back into herself, when it roared again even louder than before.


	4. Aetna Part 3

She dropped and tried to run. The beast was radiating a heated intent of death, and it alarmed her. Her first step was steady and quick, as fast as someone as young as she might have taken. And the second too, a step away from the beast. She wanted to get away, and she was ready to duck from the swing-

A loud crunch echoed through the dome.

What... why was she looking at the ground, skewed and sideways? Something stung, but everything seemed to be numb. What had happened? For one moment she was just out of reach, but the next-

Had she not dodged right? Was she not fast enough? Or was she just unlucky?

That moment happened to quickly and was too much a dark blur for her to realize. It was like her memories from... before... Before all of these, it had been a blur. But for a moment, she thought she had seen something, a pair of empty, black pits for eyes. There were lips, dark and ominous, speaking... something...

...she couldn't remember.

She was falling. A soft gurgle escapes her lips. Her life was spilling. Her blood...

Her eyes rolled downwards, and then upwards, uncontrollably, "Urk... I... uh..." She couldn't piece together words. The piercing cold of metal rested against her ripped, torn, shredded and crushed flesh, a part of her cut and a part of her crushed because the slab of metal was too dulled and caked with blood to ever cut again.

_Screech_...

The blade was torn away from her flesh, allowing her to bleed freely. It dragged against the stone, causing sparks to fly. Her left shoulder hurt. And so did her chest. And her thigh, which rested against the floor. Her body was pulled backwards, towards the minotaur, as the blade was pulled out of her.

"-Ackh...!" She felt her body burn with pain. Blood dripped from her lips even more freely, and her sight seemed to fade...

...The blade is raised again and—

"... Hhnkk..." She rasps, tittering on the edge of oblivion, unable to speak clearly since her throat had been partially crushed by the giant, metal slab. The moment her will gives in and she releases her grasp on her being will be the moment she fell unconscious. But she would not allow such a thing.

She didn't want such a thing.

Frighteningly dark emotions brewed under her skin at lightning paces. She felt unbridled rage at the beast for doing this to her. And she felt the same for being unable to dodge the downward slash. She felt similarly for her situation, and Caecius, and the world, and all things... for a single moment. And she felt others, sorrow, hatred, and many multitudes of strange emotions she had only heard of and never felt, her heart ripped to shreds by these feelings even as her lifeblood dripped out of her bleeding heart.

She coughed a bloody wad of something sticky and ugly, her own blood splattering freely at her feet. She didn't want this, she repeated to herself in her mind. She didn't want this pain and she didn't want any of this. Why did it have to come to this? Why couldn't the minotaur leave her alone, why, why, why was she dying?

And for a moment, oblivion grasped her-

* * *

..._What?_

_Who...?_

_"You shall be Evangeline." It rasped. "Evangeline, Athanasia, Katherine, McDowell. A name holds meaning, but this has been a... pity, my creation. For you see, you are a failure."_

_It stared at her, before turning away. And she was filled with a sense of disgust for her inability. It was better to feel this than to feel unwanted and unneeded and alone._

_But she knew what she felt, nevertheless, and the tears would stop, with time._

_..._

"Hhnh!" She grasped for the air that would not flow into her lungs. The soft wheezing whispered out of her, torso collapsed and broken, and her body torn to shreds. But she did not die, like mortals would. Instead, something broke inside of her, something that had long since been locked away and forgotten.

And like a dam breaking forth, the tide of long since dormant energy that slept within her pour forth.

The solid blackness that had escaped the sight of her torch crawled forth, as if it had been made from a thousand millipedes, each clicking and crawling about. And the darkness grew, eating away the light and everything that was. The darkness consumed her in an absolute night, and it poured out of her, like a breath that had been held for such a long time, that she had forgotten she was holding it in.

Her eyes opened.

All hundreds of them, each opening in the shapeless blackness. All of them staring at the beast with unhinging emotions, with bloodshot eyes, lidless and flaming pupils, as blood rolled out of the corners of them all. A hundred tiny hands reached forth, grabbing at the beast that was so transfixed by the hypnotic aria of her bleeding glaze.

And each shadowy hand tore at it, devouring a chunk as if it was never there.

The Minotaur howled in pain, but for the first time, it howled and roared for a different reason than rage. It feared, and she sensed it. No... no, more accurately, she smelled it and she felt it, from its scent and the beating of its living heart...

... The slab clattered away onto the ground, useless against the fathom darkness. It lied forgotten.

And the Minotaur tore at itself, in a desperate attempt to rid itself of the crawling, eldritch hands, each so chilling, slime-like and insubstantial. Shadows and darkness enveloped it, and it began to tear at its skin and its eyes, all the while screaming in fear. And then it was dead, not from its self-inflicted wounds and not from these phantom tendrils of darkness, but from fear itself.

And then the darkness receded, and she fell to the ground, weakened and drained. Tired from her mental exertion, but most of all hungry to the point of feeling empty. And scared, most of all, at what she had done and what she was becoming. Yet at the same time, a thrill of the sense of power, and a somber celebration in her mind, for being still alive...

...she was alive, wasn't she?

She struggled. She twitched and groaned in pain. Her life was still leaking and spilling out of her. The pain returned as the situation wore down. She looked down and felt the lingering control and will power within her drain at the sight and smell of the sticky liquid.

Her neck bent low, with no other means of moving. Her tongue flicked out, at first testing the air and then just barely touched the surface of the pool under her body.

Slowly, she brought a drop of her essence into her lips at a time.

And slowly, the blood around her began to roll. Each drop moved individually, and together they flowed towards her like the migration of a flock. All the drops of blood rolled to her, millimeter by millimeter, slower than a snail's pace. But they still moved, even as she stretched her neck to her limits to lick up the blood that had spilled.

She continued this for what seemed to be hours, perhaps even days or simply only moments, mechanically and diligently, obeying her instincts.

...And it was only when dust crumbled did she lose her concentration. There was not even a single drop of blood remaining on the ground; all with her senses were within her. She felt full, from each drop of energy growing inside her. And she looked up, seeing the body of the Minotaur crumbling into ashes and dust. She pitied it, but there was little remorse within for such a beast. It had a clarity of mind, at the final moments of its death, so if it could achieve that, then why didn't it stop itself sooner? She wondered... were monsters not a united front against the mortals and the gods?

But it would have to wait.

She didn't know how long she had spent, lapping up her own spilled blood and the life essence of the Minotaur, but she felt greater than before. It was as if she was equally grown and burdened, in her mind at least. And so she stood up, weakly at first, but stronger by the second.

The shadows were not all an extension of herself, and she could not feel it like it were her skin. Only that which she created herself was a part of her, nothing more. She could not connect with the shadows of this great maze and make it one with her being. Such a thing was no easy task, and it would surely overwhelm her in her exhausted state.

So she stood straight and walked, out of the dark dome, which she could see clearly in, and into the dark corridors.

As she descended, the maze had become more and more straight forward. There were less traps, and less false exits, until it was but one seemingly-never-ending spiral down to the underworld. Her throat was dry and her breathing was labored here. Droplets of sweat rolled down her brow as she walked deeper into the fiery pits. Each step was like walking on live coals, and each breath was like drinking in fires of a forge...

...but then she met a split in the path. And at the center of which, an armored skeleton laid. It was covered in old, bronze armor, and it held onto a short sword and a round shield, both incredibly radiant in the fire-light of her magical torch. And its armor was equally so shining, as if it were just polished, even though the dust that lay around the skeleton belied hundreds of years of age. All of this had intricate designs etched into them, strange symbols and archaic runes that seemed to glow in the dim light. It was leaning towards the right hand path, with one arm pointing in each direction...


	5. Aetna Part 4

But it was probably best to leave the skeleton alone...

...She felt a sense for respecting the dead, having been as close to dead as she could be just a few moments before. It would be wrong for someone to loot her corpse, wouldn't it? But then there was also the strange glowing of the skeleton's items. Perhaps they would be dangerous, and perhaps the skeleton might even stand up to attack her. She wouldn't want that, not when she was so close to her goal, whatever the reason might be.

So she soldiered onwards, down the left-side path and into the darkness. It wouldn't be long now. She could smell the crackling ozone, the splitting air burning her nostrils. It was an intoxicating and noxious scent of power, one that she knew would overwhelm her, for now.

And as she drew closer, the corridor grew brighter. And it became hotter still. The heat seemed to be almost visible, shimmering and weaving about, making straight lines into squiggles. She fell against the walls more than once, only to be burned by the heat of the stone beside her instead. It was an impossible heat that no mortal could stand. She was on the verge of collapse, her body burning inside and out when...

...She walked into a large dome, and a blast of air assailed her, very nearly blowing her back into the tunnels. It was hot still, but not as hot as before. Above her, she could see a tiny hole, many, many distances away. If she had attempted to jump from there, surely she would have been just a splatter on the rocks by now! At the center of the large, heated cavern was a pool of molten rocks, so hot that they were liquid and flowing.

The vapors that rose from this glowing, yellow-gold lava was disgusting and suffocating. She very nearly puked out her stomach and fell over from the scent, but something stopped her.

Something at the center of the lake of lava roared. It roared so loudly that the cavern shook and she nearly thought the cavern would collapse upon her. But then it stopped and she saw a hole with the lake, an impossible clearing wherein there laid monsters. And within that hole, she saw something monstrous-a beast greater than any giant, so large it might possibly devour this island whole-even though she could not see it all. All she saw was a thousand eyes and a million gleaming teeth.

"**...You are not a child of Olympus, nor are you a child of the others**_._" It rumbled. Its voice was like thunder, and its passing an earthquake. A thousand hissing voices speaking at once, "**What are you, who are you, to come to my prison?**"

She blinked in confusion and muttered softly under her breath, "I was hoping you could tell me what I am."

But it heard her, like she hears it. And it replied in its ominous voice, "**Do not bother me with such a petty reason. Can't you see I am in pain? What is your true purpose here. If that petty reason is it, then I will devour you were you stand, bug.**"

She stumbled back, but realized it might be best to deliver her message first. And so she stated her purpose with only a slight quiver in her voice, trying to be brave and strong, but feeling scared within. "I was told to bring you a message, from Caecius."

"**Hm. Yes. Clever. You would survive, and the gods do not have their eyes on you. Such a clever boy**," The beast within mused. "**Very well, deliver your message, maggot.**"

As she pulled out the scroll, which looked very likely it would burn apart, if not for the cold radiating from the hailstone, she unrolled it and-

"Stop! Do not do this!" Suddenly, a man shot down from the hole above, wearing a shining armor of gold that glowed like the sun. It hurt to even stare at him directly, but she noticed that he had tiny wings on his ankles and he had a golden aura, similar to what Gor'c had described of the gods of Olympus. "You must not-"

"**Silence! Ah! The Messenger of the Gods, himself!**" The beast rumbled and something shot out from the hole. For a moment, it seemed like a thousand arcs of lightning would stop it, this pure concentration of power, but then a fraction of it escaped, and it slammed into Mercury like a ten-ton hammer. The messenger god was thrown to the side of the cavern and trapped by what looked like a disgusting, black tar, stuck to the cavern walls.

He struggled for a moment before turning to her and pleading desperately, "You mustn't do this, little creature! If you do, you will doom us all!"

She wanted to ask why. Really, she did. She was curious about the who and the what and the why, and all those things. But there were many questions on her mind, and she knew she would never have the time to get her answers. They wouldn't come in time, not while neither beings are so impatient. And they are a titan and a god, both mythical and so far above her, according to all the stories and the proof right before her eyes.

So she had to choose, between the god of travelers, who seemed to be benign, or the youngest titan, who was monstrous in power and form. But it wasn't much of a choice, really, considering her interactions with the two.

...Typhon is rather mean.

The extended out, and the world seemed to hold it breath. Both the god and the titan were silent, for a single moment, as she extended her arms and held the roll of papyrus before her. It grew hotter, as did her fingers. And she smiled down at the thousand eyes, restricted by the lightning, even as the runes of the message began to glow. And then, with a subtle flick, she thought almost aloud, _this is for calling me a maggot_.

And the papyrus fell into the magma, burning into a crisp before it even reached the surface of the liquid fires.

The cavern shook from Typhon's enraged roar. She thrashed in her molten prison and smashed against the walls in rage, each of her thousand mouths frothing. "**AAAARRGH! YOU! I-I, YOU, I... RAAAAGH!**"

She inched backwards, towards the exit. And for a moment, she felt safe, but then the thrashing did not stop. It grew in magnitude and power, each blow like thunder against the earth. And the cavern vibrated. She had to cover her head, for fear of small pieces of debris falling upon her. And by small, each piece that fell were large enough to crush her until nothing was left but a red paste.

Then the arcs of lightning began to coalesce again, this time straining against the serpentine heads that pushed against it. The hole where the prison was began to expand like a bubble of electricity. The lightning screeched against the nigh-invulnerable hide of the titan, who pushed without end. And the bloodshot, raging eyes leering down at her, nearly stretching the lightning prison to its limit, promising a painful death...

What did she think was going to happen? She was going to-

-A white and gold blur shot passed, and then Eva found herself sitting _on_ a cloud, looking down a small island. There was a mountain there, with its top blowing off, but with none of the storied smoke and lava flowing forth. Instead, a thousand serpentine heads shot up, roaring at every direction. The sea was red with heat and dark energies, while the air became putrid and dark.

Beside her, Mercury muttered, "You could of handled that better... but attacking that prison would have at least taken a toll on the Mother of Monsters," He sighed and rubbed his forehead in pain. Then he looked down at her and grimaced, "Zeus just died too... This isn't over. You, you're responsible for this happening..."

"But..."

"There's no time to let her recover from the damage, and without Zeus, no one will stop that monster from destroying Olympus," Mercury cut her off sharply. "You will help end this, or else there will be no god who does not seek your destruction."

"... Okay."

"Good. Well, the only good I can think of is that those abominations of the Christians have stopped besieging Olympus for the moment," Mercury mutters again. He talks rather fast, and is somehow able to fit all of his sentences into a few sounds, too few to have the same meaning as what you actually hear. "Let's see, we could..."


	6. Aetna Part 5

"Well, I can't just let you run off without any aide, even if you're the one who helped start all of this," Mercury muttered at a speed far too quick for her to comprehend. He blurred out for a moment, moving so quickly that even his after image seemed to have an after image. And then he returned, a set of anklets made from what looked like solid gold. They were twisted together like small vines, with a set of engravings on them, each punctuated with an elegant, golden wing. On each, there were the engraved words in a strange, unified language that even she could read, which said '_A Bird of Mercury is Your Name_' on one and '_Like His Wings These are the Same_' on the other. He muttered something on them and they began to glow with an ethereal light, "Well. They won't allow you to fly or move as quick as me, but as long as I do not revoke my blessing, you could be as light as a feather and maybe reach a tenth of my speed. Well, I need to-" And then he was gone.

She dropped from the clouds like a bird. The wind whipped against her cheeks harshly, but not so terrible as she might have expected. In fact, she found she could even move about, while still in the air, by pushing some of her... energy out of her pores. It was a strange sensation that nearly distracted her from seeing below her, a small phalanx of men in bronze and steel armor already engaging Typhon, who had half-way crawled out of the top of the mountain peak.

The men moved quicker than mortals, but still easy for her eyes to follow, unlike Mercury, so she suspected they were mortals with divine heritage. More than ten of Typhon's heads have escaped, and an eleventh was quickly breaching a giant hole in the side of Aetna as Typhon roared in triumph, before turning back and swallowing one of the men whole.

They were soon becoming over powered, with less than ten of them left, when a bolt of blue lightning arced through the clouds and struck Typhon's central head. The damage was immediately noticeable; that head plus the surrounding five were blown into bits and chunks, blood, bone and guts flying about like magma in a volcanic eruption. But there was not even a moment to celebrate, as twenty more heads reached up, roaring and spitting fire and acid up at the clouds, "**Zeus! Show yourself, you kinslaying coward!**"

A giant in a huge, flaming chariot rode forth, brandishing a spear of lightning and a shield of gold. He wore nothing other than a blood-red cloak, a set of golden cuirass that only covered from his midriff and downwards, and a decorated, golden helm that covered his entire face. He replied with an equally thunderous voice, "**It is not Zeus who answers your challenge this day Monster! You shall not destroy what we have built for these hundred years, Typhon!**"

"**Ah! The whelp Ares! Where is your Father? Is he hiding behind your mother's skirt?**" Typhon cackled madly, before several of her limbs broke free of the mountain top. She utterly ignored the mortals who kept cutting and jabbing at her in favor of the god who circled around the mountain on the flaming chariot.

The war-god sneered so prideful that Eva could feel it from the foot of the mountain where she stared up in awe. What could she do, even with the blessings of Mercury, against beings that could tear the world around her asunder?

The god that Typhon called Ares reared back and hurled another bolt of lightning, this time striking the peak of the mountain, and cutting off many more heads at the expense of many of the mortal men. He roared in return, "**My Father needs not face something as forgotten as yourself, Monster! You will not be devouring any more innocents this day!**"

"**Innocents?**" Typhon scoffed before dodging a bolt of lightning. It had moved so quickly that it appeared as quickly as it had been hurled, but somehow the titan could see where it was going. It spewed fire again, raining giant meteors of fire and acid down all over the island, as if the idea that aiming at Ares' chariot was too difficult and the titan needed to hit everything at once.

Where the fire landed, it left blackened, glassy earth. Where the acid landed, it left pools of putrid, black and green liquids the bubbled and hissed with a strange smell of death.

Eva hid behind a rock, approaching Typhon, but some distances away. She was close enough that these giant splashes would not land on her directly, but far enough to still escape the two roaring giants' notices.

Typhon roared again, "**Zeus is no innocent! And none of his fellows that day are! You will all suffer for his crimes, for you, gods, are the true monsters!**"

"**Hmph! You might retort all day, but you are destined to fail, Typhon,**" Ares announced.

"**If that is so, then face me on the ground, coward godling! Do not hide from me like a child!**" Typhon taunted.

Ares laughed and jumped from his chariot without a second thought. He stood only half the height of Typhon's neck, but he stood and charged valiantly. He attacked viciously and nobly. And he shouted, "**Very well! You shall fall to m-**"

And then chariot of fire, along with its magnificent horses, were swallowed whole, a moment before Ares was caught by one of Typhon's heads. Typhon bit down on Ares' left leg, holding him down just long enough for another head to bite down on his arm. A second later, both remaining limbs were caught too. And for a moment Ares looked like he might win the struggle, the lightning bolt sizzling wildly in his hands, frying another head that exploded so close that Eva was covered in its gore. But then his grip on the lightning loosened and each head began to pull...

And pull...

"**Yaarghh! Help me, Neptune! Uncle, where are you?**" Ares cried out, frantic and shaken for the first time in this fight.

A figure appeared in the oceans, glowing like Ares but wielding a trident and surrounding by swirling waters. He was a grim looking god, who was accompanied by several others, who came by ocean and by the sky, and he replied, "**You asked for this to be only between you and Typhon, **_**King Ares**_**. And so you shall have it.**"

"**Wha-?!**"

The lightning bolt, lost from the god's hands, reverted into a single, rusted rod of bronze, barely larger than Eva. It fell and clattered into the rocks. The remaining gods, from whom Eva could see a goddess of hunt, a goddess of wisdom, another god of war, and two others dressed for battle but wielding bows, all surrounded the monster Typhon. They stood like stone sentinels, before Neptune spoke, "**I apologize for my brother's transgressions, Typhon. But you are a danger to the world, and you need to be... as the mortals say, put down**."

"**Then kill me, if you can! You are just as guilty as your brother, fool!**" Typhon roared, finally breaking free of its confines. More mortals streamed in, from the skies by a blur, but they each lasted no more than a few moments against the awesome monstrosity that was the Mother of Monsters.

Yet at the same time, the gods worked as well as the monster's heads together, and they dealt devastating damage to its surroundings, crushing, flooding, melting, and destroying the landscape as quickly as Typhon. For the moment, it was as if they were evenly matched, but each could give in at any moment. Even Mercury was fighting now, instead of bringing more humans into the fray, for without any preparation, it was like throwing snowflakes into a bonfire. As they clashed again and again, it seemed more and more likely that the world would end. All sorts of strange phenomena occurred in these passing moments, each as mysterious as the last...

...And Eva witnessed it all, from their creation to their execution, to their very intricacies. And she was there, watching, staring in awe as the world seemed to crumble around her. And she was there, witnessing this titanic struggle, in which there seemed to be the meeting between an unstoppable force and an immoveable object.

Haa...

Blood flows like a thousand tiny streams, coalescing into a mighty river. They are around her, each drop rolling around the fires, through the waters, over the ice and under lightning. And they are intoxicating.

Her legs give away and she drops down, unable to control herself. Her hands are pressed against the muddy earth, ignoring the devastating battle around her. Men and spirits continue to die by the hundreds without end and the sky grows ever darker.

She presses her lips close to the ground and her tiny, pink tongue snakes out. Her licks were swift, gobbling up what few drops untouched by the devastation. There were few to be sure, most of whatever was touched by the clashing gods were turned into ashes and left no blood. Each drop was like licking up an ember and swallowing a live coal. It was painful, the fires of power coursing through her, ripping at her body.

And yet she kept going, when there was no blood left.

Haaa... ha...

She flew. Her steps were quick but unsure. Without any grasp over the earth and only the soles of her delicate, bleeding feet, she ran. Her speed was blinding, but only barely as quick as the speed of the gods. They were beyond her, hurling power unknown while moving quicker than a blur. And they moved together, supporting each other, each with a shard of the speed of Mercury, the power of Poseidon, the endurance of Athena, and all...

...She dropped to her feet, after flying half the distance to the bronze staff. She couldn't dare draw closer. The potent power was a thousand times that which she felt and smelled in Typhon's prison. The very air was crackling with lightning around her, the ozone screeching in pain as if it were living from being sheered by the thousand nigh-invisible bolts that surrounded the lightning bolt.

And she knelt, because she knew what was on the ground. A shred, greedy part of her urged her on, even as the bits and pieces, so very small parts of Typhon, tore at her. Her veins popped out and she bled through the phantom cuts all over her skin, as the power of Typhon threatened to explode out of her. It was supremely of her power of will that held her being together. The power, even as it tore at her, it healed her. Pain of a thousand phantom cuts attacked at her, inside and out, but just as she began to bleed again and again, these wounds healed.

And she knelt, ready to take in more. She wanted this. She licked her dried and cracked lips even as she healed again and again. The sheer heat from the battle around her was greater than that at the core of the volcano.

And so she knelt, gathering a pool of the life essence of Ares.

Each drop echoed with the power of the god of war, arrogant and overwhelming in pure strength. She didn't hesitate. She drank of Ares' power. And the burn became a hundred times worse. For a moment, she lost consciousness...

The pain had overwhelmed her mind, and she saw only white and black. Pure white, yet she sensed and felt nothing. She was not even aware-but she was. And she felt her world on fire. The blood of Ares was not as potent as that of Typhon's, but it was like comparing one flare of the sun to another. Both were so overwhelmingly potent that she didn't even know how she had not merely burst into flames and died, other than that _she willed it_.

Pain wrecked at her body and mind. She was dizzy and feverish, her throat dried and contracted to the point where nothing could get through, yet she still panted and sweated and the tears that welled at the corners of her eyes poured out. Her back arched in an unnatural angle, twisting her in pain, her bones cracking and her ligaments snapping. Her muscles screamed at her, as if being torn apart over and over again. Her pain fought against her ambitions and her will to live... and she fell into darkness again.

"... Well, well, what do we have here?" A hissing, serpentine voice echoed from the darkness. She turned to it, willing it forth. And she saw a monstrous being with the body of a snake but the torso and head of a grotesque man. A thousand dragon heads had replaced the being's arms, and yet, it was smaller than her, barely reaching up to her waist.

"What... are you?" She wondered aloud.

It cackled, "What am I? Do you have to ask, when you know the answer? And what are you, to do this to... a fragment of myself?"

"Indeed, why am I here, bound to this darkness? What matter of being are you?" Another voice called out. It was louder, and belonged to a greater man. But it was not a man, but a god. He had the glow of one, and wore a cloak of blood-red and golden, Spartan armor. He sneered up at her, because he too was as small as the serpentine creature. "How did you do this... monster?"

She stared in confusion, and frowned, answering truthfully, "I... I don't know..."

"Heh," The serpentine being laughed again, "And I can't even kill you here, Ares. While I have not heard of such a power, I know what I know." He seemed smug, but having never seen a face so ugly, she couldn't tell if it was truly an expression of smugness.

"Tell me!" The tiny replication of Ares roared, but he fell flat on his face with a wet splat, reverting into a black liquid before somehow reconstituting his being a moment later. His expression was clearly one of horror as his body reformed fully, and he backed away as he stared down at his hands. He muttered shakily, panicking, "No... no, no, no..."

She turned to the serpentine being, who must be a shard of the beast, Typhon. And she asked for an answer in her mind.

It shrugged, even as it attempted to strike at her with its limbs, "You will is my command, _Master_." It hissed mockingly and bowed.

She frowned and glared. The pain was still here. All of it, all that she felt before being knocked out into this oblivion. She could feel it _all_. Yet it would not stop and she could not pass out, no matter how much she wanted to. It was... annoying. It made her angry. And it seemed that even this image of Typhon backed away, for a single moment, when faced with her wrath.

It bowed again, and answered without any accent but a dead, monotone, "The answer is blood. Life is in blood, and so is the soul. And so is power. In drinking a fragment of beings such as Ares and I, who are beyond such concepts such as mortality and materiality, you have taken in a shard of us into you. And as our blood becomes yours, we too, become a part of you."

Her eyes widened at the implication and she too backed away.

"...Frightening, is it? Is this not what you wanted, Evangeline? This is _POWER_." Typhon's voice echoed through the dark expanse of her mind. "This is what you sought in your actions. Are you prepared for the consequences? As long as you exist, so too a piece of me, and a piece of Ares. You might eventually command the full spectrum of our powers, but you have already inherited all of our enemies." Typhon laughed. "But go, your body is healing and adapting, Daughter of the Beginning. You will have to face was it to come, no time to waste here."

And she woke with a gasp.

Pain.  
_Pain._ PAIN. PAINpainpain_pain__**pain**_PAIN_**PAIN**_**PAIN**...

Her sight is blurred and she couldn't see well. Black smoke filled the air, a hundred craters splattered across the mountain range. Dead spirits, dead monsters, and dead humans have gathered all around her, their bodies were like hills that shrouded the sky. All sorts of monsters and mortals... how long had she passed out?

...Dead _gods_.

One of Mercury's legs lay some distances away, on the other side of the mountain. Golden blood spilled from the limb that was still alive and it twitched, even as it lied dying in a pool of black acid. Another god, the goddess Minerva, was closer. Her body was closer, being crushed and beaten into a pulp by two giants, even though she was clearly dead for some time. A man on a Pegasus swooped in, killing the two giants, only to be knocked off his flying steed by a boulder hurled from a Cyclops. And they fought still, without reason, tired yet unstopping...

Above her, two titans fought, their heads scraping against the very clouds.

Neptune, who had lost one hand and one eye, stood as tall as his opponent. He struck and blocked expertly with his trident.

Opposing him was a giant that was equally large, at least twist the height of the mountain, with a body of a snake and a thousand dragon heads sprouting from all over its body. Typhon lost as many heads as it grew back, though for as many as Typhon lost, Typhon had struck back in return.

As they clashed and spilled their blood, their sizes began to decrease.

By the time the battlefield had quieted down, only they two remained. All others, thousands and thousands, were dead. They stood, barely larger than the average mortal, but certainly larger than her. They faced each other, sagging and panting, bleeding and sweating, throwing sluggish blows at each other still. The dragon heads of Typhon had shrunk to the size of garden snakes, and Neptune's dominion over water seemed to have run dry.

And she sat there, her body still splitting apart in pain, with the bronze staff only a few paces away, crackling. She didn't dare move, for she felt any moment she would collapse and lose everything. But each breath she took, she felt a little stronger.

And then, in a single breath, both Typhon and Neptune turned to her, surprise-horror, rage, hate?-showing on their faces...


	7. Aetna Finale

Her head drooped down, and, her body tired and sore. Before her was a pool of blood, mixed with the mud and acid and bile of monsters and spirits. It is an inconsistent substance that would be akin to cold, viscous tar, but as she drew closer, she could smell the blood rising out of the mixture. This was the cocktail made from this battle field, covering it for the most part, this mixture of blood and earth.

And she took in the smell, savoring it in favor of minding the pain that arched across her flesh. It was like a thousand tiny claws had dug into her and tore at her, and while her flesh healed, the phantom pains and what lingered did not.

Above her, the two combatants scoffed, before turning back to each other. Apparently, her mortal wounds had made them think her dying, dead even.

As much as she was an abomination to their very being, they had been enemies for many eons. And their fight would finally come to an end. Two had entered this deathly combat, and only one shall leave. Their taunts, curses and jeers filled the already dark air. It was night now, but none of the stars dared show themselves. Their blows were still like the blows of giants, but they were only the size of men.

Neptune had grasped the serpentine tail, and lifted Typhon into the air. He spun his body around like a cyclone, before tossing the enemy titan some distances away. But as Typhon was tossed, he twisted and tore into the god's flesh. And so their bout continued, without end.

Meanwhile, she sniffed once, and drank.

It was putrid, like drinking the warm, disgusting brew that the mortals called beer, but many, many times worse. Yet it was also soothing, the taste of earth and nature at her lips. But it was an abominable mixture, just as she was an abomination. It should not exist. The blood and flesh of monsters, of mortals, of spirits, and of... other things... should not mix. It was not to be and it was anathema to all, like her.

And she drank, and drank, and drank.

Disgusting, filthy blood entered her, opposite of the pure, potent essences that she had taken in earlier. It was impure and diseased, like that of the blood of mortals. There was the blood of monsters mixed in, as well as that of gods and titans. But the potency was like comparing the sun with her torch, lying uselessly at her side.

And so she burned it, drinking its power into her. And she reached an understanding, as the Typhon within had told her. Blood was power. Blood is power. And she had that, in abundance.

Scars faded and wounds closed. Her thirst quenching. The pain fading. The throbbing pain that rung across her mind, and felt like her head had been bashed in, which she had not even noticed or thought existed seemed to fade. The ringing of her ears fade, another sign that she didn't realize existed. Her hearing returned, and her sight became less and less blurry.

The battle between god and titan didn't seem as distant as before. They were fighting without thought now, feral and dangerous. Their curses have become growls and their epithets roars. They have devolved, from well-spoken beings, into... something else entirely. Weaker, but more savage and terrible, they ran across the battlefield, clashing like brutal beasts.

Healed enough, she stood. At first, her legs were shaky, but she grew firm, even though her newly healed muscles were fresh and unstretched. Her body moved quickly, thanks to the aide of the artifacts of Mercury that lightened her body, barely fast enough to dodge an attack on her from Typhon.

She skidded to a halt, the soles of her feet scrapped and bleeding from her sudden movement, and looked up at the beast that flew at her with widened, fearful eyes. Even so weakened, the monster progenitor had made a small crater in the ground from its strike.

Before it struck her body, a trident flew through the air and pierced Typhon's torso.

Neptune roared in triumph and leaped. She scrambled back, and grasped onto the bronze staff of the lightning bolt. Energy coursed through her, like a million tiny snakes biting at her all at the same time.

Her hands moved without her reasoning, only her instincts. She held the staff awkwardly before her, stretching her arms to the limit. It was painful to hold onto. Her hands felt like they were holding onto fires hot enough to burn fire and the pain from this shocking energy kept crawling all over her arms, biting and burning at her flesh. She smelt a scent of burnt flesh and her ears filled with the sizzling sound of electricity surrounding her like a crown of lightning. Her teeth chattered, unable to keep still. For even a second later, her hands already felt numb.

But her instincts proved true, as a thin arc of lightning shot through the staff and impacted upon Typhon. It exploded in a fiery death, singeing Neptune's beard. The old god turned to her with a maniacal gleam in his remaining eye and he roared with none of the usual glory that came with the voice of titans and gods, "Abomination!" The word had been so twisted by his battle-madness that it was more a growl than a call...

...but she understood.

Yet she didn't want to go back on her word. She wanted to keep it and help the gods of Olympus, like she had agreed to Mercury. But the world didn't have the same thoughts, because Neptune charged, batting aside her meager attempt at holding him back with the shadow and darkness with his trident.

Even without the power of the god, it seemed that this trident had power of its own, a mind of its own even.

And the god struck at her again and again, making her retreat more and more desperate. The lightning bolt clattered to the ground as she ran, too frightening and confused by the turn of events to understand what was happening. All she could do was to keep herself from crying outright and mutter softly under her breath, "Why? Why? Why...?" The feelings of rejection reemerged and she felt anguish again.

But her prowess and raw ability came down to be just below that of the exhausted, tired and berserk Neptune.

She tried to hide behind the hill of bodies and weapons, but the god could feel her moving and never let her more than a step ahead of him. She tried to meld into the shadows, but without Typhon to distract him, the god could always find which shadow was her. And when she tried to run, she knew she couldn't outrun or outlast the still more powerful being. So desperate, she tried to turn and plead, her eyes red with tears, "P-Please-aah!"

Blood flew.

Pain shot through her like a miniature bolt of electricity, but she was too numb still to feel it. She fell to her knees, slumped, and stared up at the crazed god, who lifted her torn arm atop his trident. Seconds passed as Neptune laughed like a maniac, as the bleeding limb began to frost over and soon shattered.

Panting, she stared up in horror.

He grinned before pointing his trident down at her and drew close. She saw his yellowing, rotting teeth, unprotected by his godly splendor, and smelled the foul odor of his breath and cringed. He drew closer, only a finger away from her face. And then he stabbed with his trident.

Into the shadowy smoke of nothingness. There was only the shadow of a pillar of bodies, made from the flickering flames of the battlefield. He had struck into the earth, shattering it and loosening it, before it froze in place and water began to fill and flood. But nothing. No sound of shrill cries of little monsters as they died. He looked up, confused and still in the haze of tired madness.

And then he looked down, and saw the jagged edge of Zeus' Lightning Bolt piercing his chest. There had not even been a single shock of lightning coming from the divine staff that was the mark of the Ruler of Olympus, but it had pierced his heart with what little power she had remaining.

As red blood with only a slight hint of golden glow began to spill from his lips and his chest, the haze of madness faded. The cold, numbing truth of what happened washed over Neptune like a tide. And he turned back to her with shocked eyes. He saw a small girl, barely able to hold up the bronze staff at the lower end of its handle, shivering and covered in burns and soot. She had fearful eyes, with many wet streaks of tears running down her face. And she whispered something he couldn't hear, as the darkness consumed his vision. And then he fell against the staff, planting it further into the earth as the last breath left his material body.

She stared in shock as Neptune died, and as he turned around, eyes still so filled with shock and hatred, she whispered just as he died, "I'm sorry."

And then, she too fell, too tired to stay awake. Before she collapsed into unconsciousness, she heard from the edge of her vision, just in the corner of darkness, Ares' voice, "...Shouldn't have tried to use my Father's bolt. Its lightning feeds on its user's power. Look at how pathetic _we_ are no-"

She woke an unknown amount of time later.

Everything hurt. But it was a good sort of hurt, like having sore muscles that have been too tired from too much exercise. She stared up at the glaring sun for just a moment, before shivering, feeling like she had been burned. Well, she had a light fever, somehow. She was burning up slightly.

Her fingers and toes were cold. The battlefield had not been salvaged for the most part. The bodies of most of the combatants had disappeared, yes... All that remained were the bodies of some of the humans, being picked at by what looked like thousands of crows. Strange, no mortals had come and stolen everything... but there seemed to be almost nothing here to steal. Everything seemed to have decomposed into rags and ruins.

...She found she couldn't touch the Lightning Bolt. Whenever she drew close, it would drain on her energy, something that went unnoticed because of how little it drained, but now that she knew what to look for, it was obvious. She didn't even know what this energy was, but it had replenished to the brim by the time she awakened. Finally, she found that the trident of Neptune seemed to keep the Lighting Bolt from shocking anything. In fact, they seemed to be at odds with each other, they wouldn't hurt her at all, as long as they were touching. And these two weapons seem to have shrunken in size too, now barely reaching up to her shoulder in height.

She salvaged some of the rags from the armor of others that had participated in the battle, and wrapped it around the two tools. Maybe they will come in handy later. She couldn't really carry much else than this, so she headed out...


	8. The Hedgesorcerer's Apprentice 1

The former battlefield at the foot of Aetna was a desolate wasteland. Life has been scoured from this deserted plain, filled with craters and scars of war. There was little here for her, though eventually she found tracks on the ground.

They were human tracks, moving about, from pile to pile. It seemed as if they took what they could, and left what they couldn't, she guessed. It certainly would explain the small piles of burnt bones that looked like they were trying to reach for the Lightning Bolt. And the puddles of water around the Trident. But there were a few things that were hidden on the field, here and there.

She found small trinkets, amulets and rings, along with some plates that remained untouched. They had an aura about them that seemed to repel her, forcing her to look a different direction and think of something else. If not for her power of will and her past experiences with illusions, she would not have seen through these things.

In the end, she had to conclude that the battlefield had been looted. She didn't like the sound of it, because it seemed to be... disrespectful to the beings who fought here. It wasn't like she wanted to be respectful to Neptune, but people-gods-like Mercury should be respected.

He seemed nice, in her memories.

Still, she had no knowledge of how to pay her respects. Her lost memories left the strangest gaps in her knowledge, this being one of them. What could she do to respect them? They were beings who fought with titans and gods. And she was just a little girl.

She felt lost, and reminded of how alone she was, in her attempt.

She was hungry too, and she tried to call the blood about her, to her. It was difficult. However long she spent asleep, there was barely any blood left on the battlefield. But it was enough, despite being even dirtier and less potent than even the muddy pools she drank from before, to keep her from being starved.

The crows or ravens-she couldn't really tell the difference between the two-kept returning. And she thought that it would have been nice, perhaps, to drive them away from the battlefield, for a time.

She found her abilities have grown since... before, slightly. With Mercury's blessing, she could catch the birds, and using their blood as fuel, she could launch multiple, solid hands of shadow at them from afar. Within the day, she had driven them away, only to realize she was even more lonely now than ever.

So she tried to look for survivors. It couldn't have been so long since the battle, right?

But nothing came of this. She expanded her senses, powering them with her mysterious energy, so much that the beating of her own heart seemed to be like thunder. But she had found nothing, but traces of tracks leading back to Catania. And these were probably only the tracks of the other looters who arrived before she awakened.

The magic compass of Gor'c was no help either. It kept pointing to her, no matter how she moved or where on the field she went. It was frustrating to see the bronze finger stringently pointing only at her, with its sapphire tip unmoving, only twitching from her impatience.

She found that the neither the Titan nor the God within her would speak. They were silent.

She stared down at the muddy puddles at her feet and studied the distorted reflection within. Then she shivered and clung to herself, mindful of the rags that tied her few belongings to her back, and whimpered to herself, "I don't want to be alone."

The sky was grey, yet the clouds didn't rumble. But it rained. It kept raining.

It just kept raining.


	9. The Hedgesorcerer's Apprentice 2

The gates of Catania appeared to be different. They walls seemed to be shorter, and many parts of it seemed to be salvaged and hastily built up. There were still many sections that were filled with holes, as if something much larger had come this way and smashed into it several times with a... there was a tree trunk stuck inside a part of the walls, and she thought she knew who did this.

It was a tad silly to be laughing at this, especially not knowing who was hurt or what this had cost the town, but she couldn't help herself. It felt good to giggle.

"Hold on, who're you supposed to be?" A watchman called out from atop the gates before she could reach them.

She shrugged, "I am Eva, a traveler from Rome."

"Oh? You're a refugee then? Didn't stick around and fight?" The watchman growled menacingly. He seemed to be rather spiteful, though not really at her, even if he was projecting his anger upon her. This was not the young man who watched the walls when she left and it left her with a sense of sadness to not be taunted by the rude fellow she left from. Still, the watchman continued, "Or are you one of the filthy slaves? Huh? Talk, traveler!"

"I am as you see me, just a little girl," She pleaded. "I don't know much about all that, just that my parents are missing and I am alone."

"Eh? Then why should I let you in? Catania is already suffered enough from the demons of the land, it doesn't need more of... freeloaders or what you are," The watchman refused.

She frowned, but asked again earnestly, "Please, sire. Don't you have any charity?"

"I..." The watchman sighed, "I am a good man and I listen in the church. Alright... alright. You can come in, but be warned that the town is not so welcoming to strangers. There have been too many strange things that have walked the land as of late. Demons and spirits, and such."

"Oh, I have been here before," Eva nodded as she walked through the gates.

And so she did, and she found the town just a little more distraught than before. It was a little more crowded, with strange people of all sorts walking the streets, just like her memories of Rome. There were vendors and shops of all kinds, lining the streets near the gates and near the docks. She thought about seeing Percy and perhaps apologizing, but his boat was not there.

Perhaps... another time.

Instead, she had many questions and no enough answers. She wanted to explain what had happened, and her powers, and learn of the way things worked. It was supremely her curiosity that led her away from other opportunities and to a small hut, on the far edge of the town, where the streets were unmaintained and people were dressed in rags, like her. Here, the stench of humanity was strong, and uncleaned, she wrinkled her nose a little, as she stood on the steps of the small hut.

Before she had gone into Aetna to find Typhon, she had felt a presence of power here. But compared to the titan and the gods, it was sorely lacking in potency, she realized. It was just that she had nothing to compare it with-why, even she was nearly on par with the power here.

There were small, strange signs of symbolism about this hut.

Its door was filled with cracks and holes, but it had a carefully painted symbol of something she didn't quite understand on it that caused her to rile back and nearly hiss in pain. It was hard to look at it, but she could smell that it was painted in lamb's blood. There were other, smaller details, little trinkets that other homes didn't have, and little drawings of circles and strange figures on its walls and its surrounding grounds.

She had very nearly turned back from this, but she had come this far already, so her determination would not be so easily turned aside by little symbols. Her feet moved with her will, and she urged herself onward. It was difficult, but once she passed the initial barrier, it seemed like there was little stopping her, other than a slight pressure in the air.

It did make it a little hard to breathe, but at this point, she could be feeling that because she hasn't had enough sleep too!

"Eeh? Who is it?" An old, grouchy growl shot from one of the rooms within the hut. It was larger than it seemed from the outside, or the room she had walked into seemed to be rather small. There was a small hearth here, and several small mats to sit on. A loud stomping came from the other side of the building, and before she knew it, an old man wearing a set of old, grey robes walked out. He was mostly nondescript and rather angry looking, with a nearly bald head filled with only a few silver strands. He squinted at her and muttered, "No good children mucking about... what are you doing here? I'll have you whipped if you stole anything!"

"I... I was just curious," She was taken aback by his annoyed tone. "I thought I felt something here... Well..."

"Hmph. Don't talk about that kind of business here, girl," The old man walked closer, glaring at her face. He seemed to growl, showing that he was missing just about three quarters of his teeth. "The church won't like it, even if the townsfolk tolerate me. Fine! Come in! I am Obediah, the town... healer, of sorts. Poultices and potions, I am good at those, and I dabble in a little here and there. I can see that you're truthful enough, so come in and sit at my fire."

She flinched at the sight of the fire, thinking back to her recent past. For a moment, she wanted to refuse, but that seemed... impolite. So she sat down beside the man, and ate supper with him.

Obediah was a self-taught man, having a minor talent in making sparks found at a young age, he wasn't from this town. But its people have been good to him, and so he tried to return the favor. He was an apothecary and a sort of surgeon, of some talent, he told her. Of course, over the time of his life, he had tested and learned a few pieces of arcane lore, to teach himself enough to defend himself. Most of this he had learned on his own, seeing as it was rather difficult to find others who practiced magic... and would not immediately kill him.

It seemed like he was just lonely, living on the edge of town. This struck a chord within her heart, and she found she didn't really want to leave, at least not until she had learned all he had to teach her, she reasoned with herself... Obediah invited her to stay at his little cottage, to be his apprentice. With nowhere else to go, it was probably her only option now. Still, Obediah had commented lightly, that her red eyes would attract unwanted attention, if she were not a healer of sorts.

He could teach her a lot, but she would need to help around the place, perhaps for a good, ten years, he mused. If he lived that long, he laughed. She wondered how long he had lived, though he had not bothered to tell her. He seemed nice enough to even offer her a choice in what she wants to learn...


	10. The Hedgesorcerer's Apprentice 3

"You must ingrain it within you," Obediah grumbled.

She tilted her head questioningly, "But why? Wouldn't I be able to make magic faster, if I didn't need to trigger... this?"

"Hmph. And what would you do if you started burning my hut down while you slept? It is a safety measure because you would need it. I know, because this isn't my first house!" Obediah retorted. He turned away from her in a huff and back to his work on grinding herbs down into powders. "It is a means of focus. Unfocused magic will hurt innocents."

"I understand."

"Good, now try again," Obediah growled again.

Learning magic, or as much as the basics that Obediah would be willing to part with, was quick and surprisingly easy to her. She figured out things faster than most people could, and she easily outpaced her mentor at times when knowledge was not specifically necessary.

Obediah was a harsh taskmaster when it came to his sorcery. He didn't have an explanation for it, but some people had a talent for it. There were few who did in the area, and she was perhaps one of the few in the town who actively sought to improve herself. And so Obediah taught, but nothing came straight forwardly. To make her use a trigger phrase, Obediah beat it into her with a stick-albeit a small one that was 'approved by the Church'-until she did do it.

Her first time manually triggering magic was painful to a degree, though because of her high pain tolerance, it felt almost like only a prick of a needle, poking at every part of her spine. They were 'magical paths', according to Obediah, who said this was like the blood that flowed through their bodies. Blood. She didn't seem to believe it and it didn't feel right, but it was close enough that she didn't question it openly. When she did channel magic through her body, she began to glow with a white, mist-like light. It hurt to watch, but a moment later, this light dimmed to darkness and shadows, red and black.

Obediah remarked that everyone had a different affinity, and this was hers.

He didn't teach her many things more than this, leaving her to run most of his errands around the town instead. These were small tasks that paid little, but she received none of the earnings from her work-instead, Obediah took it. He said that she was even being provided with food and shelter, since the town wouldn't even give her any work if she didn't have his reputation backing her. But the work was good, and people seemed to find her golden hair an rarity. It wasn't like it was uncommon, but most people were dirty blond or something darker. No one had hair like hers or skin like hers. So she stood out, though nothing really good or bad came from this, yet. At least she hasn't gotten any tasks to run to the Church yet. She couldn't even walk close to the structure without feeling weak in her knees.

Her teacher did teach her a few things about magic, but only things she could protect herself with. He wouldn't teach her anything she could use to harm people, he had said. If she wanted to do that, then she could go learn it from someone else.

Much of what he taught her seemed to revolve around 'five elements', being fire, water, air, earth, and ether. But her capabilities for learning this seemed to be only second to her ability to absorb knowledge, having so little of it due to her memory loss. By the end of the first week since she could activate her magic, she found that she could easily call upon the five elements. Yes, her attempts were even cruder than Obediah's, but calling out 'fire' with a finger raised and channeling magic to that finger caused a speck of flames to sprout from her fingertip. It was similar with the air, water, and earth, though she had little idea of what ether really was, so when seemingly nothing came out, she was slightly disappointed. Sometime later, she found that perhaps, the ether was simply something like the pure energy that the old man called magic. Maybe.

Obediah seemed to be rather slow in teaching her new things, always telling her she wasn't ready. Or he was saying that she needed to work on it more. And when that didn't seem to work, he told her to go on more errands around town. By this point, she figured that all the errands would be delivery errands, carrying messages, helping with miscellaneous work, or something else equally dull.

It was only dull because Obediah seemed to paradoxically expect her to return right after completing her task, leaving her with little to no time to actually interact with anyone.

How disappointing.

Well, she had spent time on this on her own, and it wasn't long before she could call out for the shadows or for ice or lightning, and such a tiny phenomenon would appear in her grasp. After a month of teaching her only to make more and more of the same basic things, Obediah seemed satisfied enough with her that he would begin to teach her other things.

"Let us begin," Obediah cackled as he sat at one end of the field, some distances away. They were on an herb collecting trip, or so he had said, but here, he tested her. There was a large pile of stones at his feet and he seemed oddly pleased.

She nodded and whispered to herself, "Shield."

The old man picked up a stone and tossed it at her, gently. It collided with her raised arms, and bounced off, cracking in two. It had broken itself on her magic defense, and she barely felt it. This was an internal enhancement spell, Obediah had said. It would come to be useful, because it can be maintained indefinitely, using very little energy, since it was barely noticeable and the energy never left her body. Still, it didn't stop the damage completely-though rocks hurled at her that should hurt felt instead, rather like being hit by a soft loaf of bread. She could still feel it, but it had been reduced so much that she barely felt anything.

"Again," He repeated.

"Shield." The stone bounced off of her. She felt that one more than the previous one. It seemed to do more than just graze her skin.

He nodded, "Again." And this repeated until the sun began to set. And then they did this, again and again, and again. They continued this for nearly a month, until Obediah was satisfied. "It would save your life. This is a basic defense any magic user should know."

"It has been a while since I have really conversed with another magic user," Obediah revealed after some time. "And I do not want to come into conflict with another magic user. You would be wise to learn how to fight against one, but I do not know how. Still... from the remains of my youth, I learned how to fight, with my hands. There is a good feeling to that, unlike magic. Magic... you can burn someone from afar. It is rude and disrespectful. You should be in front of someone, looking into their eyes and breathing the same breath, if you wish to kill them. That is what I believed; if I wanted to kill someone, they would know it and they would see me and with a sword in their hands. But I am too old to teach sword play. What I can teach is my technique, that I call reinforcement. Do you know what that means?"

"I think so..." She frowned. "It is when something is strengthened?"

"Not entirely, when we are applying the reasoning of my magic, dear girl," Obediah sighed. "It is more than strengthening a wall to keep it from falling. It is also the strengthening of your muscles, so that you can strike harder. Come, raise your defenses."

She nodded and said her incantation, "Shield."

"Good. Now, I reinforce my arm, so that it may hurl this stone as if it were slung from a slingshot. Prepare yourself," That was all the warning she received, before the old man's wrinkled and saggy arm blurred.

Even though her arms were raised and she was ready, the stone struck her, broke her guard, and knocked her on her butt. She rubbed her bruised forehead as she sat where she fell, blinking away tears. When was the last time she had felt such pain? She had not for a long time. She seemed to be slowly forgetting the events of Mount Aetna alrea-

"Don't allow your mind to wander," Obediah snapped, this time slapping her across the back of her head. "Refocus. And focus. And then, I shall go over this lesson. And you will learn, for it will be important."

By the end of the year, she had learned to use Cure, a spell that eased the pain of most flesh wounds and closed small cuts too. It would have been foolish not to, when the old man still pelted her with reinforced stones at random times, even when she was running the errands he assigned. Meanie. Still, she learned how to read and write from Obediah in this time. He seemed to think it a useful skill, and made sure that she could do this.

In her spare time, she started to...


	11. The Hedgesorcerer's Apprentice 4

She continued her studies at a moderate pace, but her mind began to speed up while Obediah's slowly broke down. It was a little saddening, to see him seemingly fade away, but she hadn't the heart or the rudeness to ask why. Why was he getting older and older...?

She began learning of other things, related to magic and herbs. Obediah had spent his life learning about this gift he had, and he called it so. He didn't seem to think that his god had cursed him, and she found he may be right. Magic is a gift few had, as it were. Obediah had a long list of herbs, of all types, that he could grind into power, make into a salve, or brew into a potion. Some of them didn't seem to have any effect, but others seemed to be slightly magical of their nature.

Still, he had a single spell he taught her, called 'Recovery', which allowed her to use the essence of the herbs and gain their benefits-or their problems. It seemed that more than half of the plants in the world would cause people to become sick rather than heal them. Imagine that. The spell itself seemed to be like her own blood consumption ability, so she picked it up pretty easily.

She had to learn this while improving her other skills, of course. And she needed to keep running errands.

Obediah surprised her in that year by giving her a gift of clothing. It was a long, red tunic with a shawl for her head too. It was beautiful, she thought when she first received it. The coloration was a bit light to be the color of blood, and it was a bit plain, but at the time, she didn't see anything wrong with it at all.

Because it was hers.

As time passed, so too did her foreignness to the town. People soon began calling her by her name as she passed, asking on occasion of how she was doing or what errand she ran for the old man.

She helped out with different trades, some fascination and some not so. Still, she learned a little about baking, a little about sewing, a little about various other things, like money. Oh, money...

... She watched the man walk up to another, with a smile on his face and jolly gait to his stride. The merchant was a bread baker who was rather grumpy and didn't like people, and he showed it by frowning and growling at the other man.

But then the man raised his arms, as if he were about to hug the bread man, and laughed. Then he brushed off the whole thing, as if it didn't happen.

He walked about, acting as if he were inspecting the goods, making small talk all the while.

It was strange, watching this from afar, but this sort of interaction was rare for her to see. And rather interesting. Because while the bread baker didn't want anything to do with the merchant, and certainly nothing to do with giving away large discounts, he agreed to do so after chattering with the merchant for somewhere between one and five minutes.

It was marvelous, this way of getting people to do what you want them to do while liking you for it all the while.

She learned later from Obediah that this was something rather common, which any mortal could do. It was a part of trading and being a merchant... and something he cared little for and she didn't have time for, he added.

She pouted and stayed silent about the lesson she had learned.

Another time, while she was walking about the town practicing her Shield, she realized that it reduced the effect of the Church on her. Why, she could walk right up to the door and only feel a slight itch-

"Hello there," A man called out. He was rather thin, and bald, but pious and kind looking. He looked like a priest, maybe. "I see you are the healer's apprentice."

"Yes, sir," She nodded, trying hard not to turn away from the man's eyes or to back down.

He nodded, not quite looking at her and turned away. She silently let out a breath at this and backed up a step before he said, "I need your help with something. One of my students has injured himself, and I think you can help. Am I wrong?"

"... What seems to be the problem?" She asked, more concerned about the hurt.

"Well, come on, around the back. Our lord was a carpenter, yes? My student was making chairs, trying to cut wood. A forest animal possessed by a demon attacked him, and he had to be carried back. Come on." He spoke as he walked, though he didn't seem to be looking at her. "I will be sure to commend you to Obediah if you can do something."

She arrived and she saw the shape the young man's leg was in. It was bleeding and skewed, twisted in a strange, inhuman angle. Even from her little bits of study at Obediah's desk, she knew that if she were only a surgeon, such a wound would be impossible to heal. She must cut it off, or else it would later kill him.

But looking at the pain in the young man's eyes, the small sparkle of relief that he had when he saw her walk in, caused her to pause. Was it right, for her to use her magic here...?

"I..." She swallowed thickly. "I will do what I can. Lay him down, on a... on a table?"

The priest shook his head, "Oh no, that would ruin the table. Lay him on the ground if you must."

"Then, we will do that," She said, hiding her shaky voice behind a hard exterior. She turned to the priest as one of his other students helped the younger man to the stone tiles. "Please bring my master, sire. I can only help so much."

"Hm, alright, you," He pointed at one of his helpers, "Go and fetch apothecary Obediah. I will watch."

She panicked, "Er... I would like to be alone, when I work."

"Why would you need to do that?" The priest frowned. "You are healing and you aren't doing evil, so there is no need to hide this. Come on, get on with it."

The man whimpered in pain at her feet.

She looked down and sighed, there was no other way. She would be committed to this, at least. "Obediah would be better at this, honestly. I will keep him alive, if I can. Would you be alright with this, sire...?"

"Yes, yes!" The injured man moaned and hissed in pain. "J-Just make it stop!"

She nodded and tucked her hair behind her ear. She absentmindedly noted that she should do something about her hair, since it has been growing rather long as of late. She shook the thoughts away and focused on her task after a moment, before clasping her hands and muttering her trigger softly.

Then she placed her palms against the man's leg and her energy flowed through, "Here, let me... _Cure_... this."

Soft wisps of light, golden and white, streamed from her palm like a warm sunbeam. Since she only applied this skill to herself, seeing as it compounded with her own regenerative ability, she had never seen the splendor of this light. It was a kind of life energy, not really her magic but a product of it. Her guesses were that she could shape this... magic... to her will. Well, without really having any explanation, this would be the best she could have so far.

The wounds closed and her target gave an audible sigh of relief, "O-oh... the pain... it's gone..."

She hadn't truly healed him, but she had closed the wound and knitted together what she could. The leg seemed to be straightened, slightly, but it was still crooked and awkward. The priest looked on, somewhat surprised with wide eyes and even wider parted lips, but he didn't say anything.

"Alright, I'm here, I'm here," Obediah grumbled. "What, I don't see anything wrong other than that boy's messed up leg. Was he born like that?"

"No, I tried to..." She began to say, but she was cut off.

Obediah stomped his walking stick against the ground and growled, "I know what you did. I just don't know why you did it, idiot girl. Now we have to break it open again just to straighten this."

She looked down at her feet in shame. "I just didn't..."

"You just didn't think, did you?" Obediah interrupted again. "This is why you don't heal unless I tell you to. You haven't even learned anything of healing yet. Why are you even here?"

She fiddled with her fingers before looking up at the priest, who looked away innocently and started whistling. She gaped at him, and tried to reply, "B-but..."

Obediah sighed tiredly. "You've done enough, go back. We will speak when I have finished here."

"... C-Can I watch you work?" She didn't dare look up into his eyes at this.

"Fine. Make yourself useful. I need..."

When they returned, Obediah confronted her with a stern glare. He didn't look directly at her, but rather at his hearth. He was frowning. "Why did you wander about?"

"I just wanted to... make some friends," She shrugged helplessly.

"You didn't think you might need to hide better? Look at you! You have red eyes and fangs! Anyone who takes a good look at you would know you have the blood of a monster in you. Sure, you look human enough, but that doesn't excuse your ancestors. And don't think I don't know about that arm," He added harshly.

She frowned. "Arm?"

"Do you really want me to point it out?" He turned towards her and uttered a long chain of words that ended with, "_Dispel!_"

Suddenly, she couldn't feel her right arm. She looked over, confused more than a little and feeling a throbbing pain grind against her right shoulder, and gasped. Her arm had disappeared, in its place was a few dissipating wisps of blackness. And then, a moment later, there was nothing there at all. At the stump just below her shoulder was a thin layer of ice crystals, entangled in her blood and cracking every few seconds before reforming itself.

"... Aah..." She whimpered. The tears that welled up in her eyes from her earlier scolding began to spill.

Obediah stared at her wound for a moment before rubbing his forehead and asking the hearth, "Were you cursed by God, girl? This is no normal wound. This... this is beyond my ability to heal. How did you get this?"

"... From the foot of the mountain," She sniffled. The ice bit at her continuously but it didn't seem to be melting at all. Instead, it was slowly freezing her.

Obediah turned away and groaned. "You will need to travel there, and find what caused this. And then you will need to destroy it, so that you can be healed. But I while doubt you will ever regain your arm, that... spell... the solid shadows that became your arm, could work. Those who are not skilled in the ebb and flow of magic will not see it being anything other than your arm." He paused. "The ice is growing. It has been with you for years. If left alone... well. I cannot help anymore than give you a pack of food and herbs. I have become too old for these sorts of adventures. I will pack for you, and you will go tomorrow. Do not return until you are healed."

"But..."

"I will not suffer another student dying before my eyes!" He roared suddenly, smashing a jar against the wall behind her. He panted harshly before sighing and slumping down. "I will not watch you die. I have lived too long for that... outliving your student is a harsh thing. We will speak no more of this... You will sleep and leave Catania tomorrow."

That night, she cried herself to sleep.

In her nightmares, she heard the cackling of laughing gods echoing through her mind. She grimaced, mad at herself and at everything, but saddened still by Obediah's harsh words. And she grasped out for...


	12. The Hedgesorcerer's Apprentice 5

"Come out, come out," She called into the darkness, in a rhythmic, singing tone. After learning so much about incantations and magic, she had realized the power in language-it is a force that helps focus her intents, a means to directing her power even when she had very little grasp over it. She licked her lips, despite this being a nightmare, it felt awfully real. "Come out, come out..."

Click... clack...

The walls around her lightened up. No, that was incorrect. She saw into the shadows and felt her surroundings, rather than creating light. She was a creature of the night and darkness. She could see in the night not by gathering the lesser specks of light, but by seeing-feeling-the darkness itself, as if it were a living entity a part of her. This was the shadow and darkness that she was accustomed to. How could she so easily forget it, just by living amongst mortals?

Click, clack...

The sound of glaciers crunching and crashing against each other. They were all around her, above her and below her. This was an icy prison of her own creation, but it was also her mind. Click, clack...

Her vision clears and she sees into the darkness and she grasps for those presences within her mind. With such crude knowledge she could postulate things that she didn't understand before. It was only a mockery of a soul that she grasped onto, for it was not truly the soul of a mortal at all, it was the sum of belief and a gathering of power. And it was hers, hers, hers, alone!

"Come to me!" She roared once more, the shadows of her mind growing numerous in number. Uncountable hands reached out of the shadows, each a reflection of her own remaining hand, grasping. A single eye blinks open at the center of each palm, as more limbs begin to sprout out of the crevices between icy towers and shadowy fissures. "COME TO ME," She screamed, "COME TO ME, ARES, SON OF ZEUS, GOD OF WAR! ARES!"

Click, clack, click, clack... The ice cracks and breaks a thousand times, but they always reform. This was her mind, and she could recovered and heal from anything. She could!

She quiets down and the innumerable hands stretching out of the dark corners of her mind each go limp. And so whispers once more, into the silence, "Come out, Ares, for you are mine."

A silhouette surges forth, pushed and pulled, tugged and torn, by a thousand hands. They each blink at him as the eyes bleed tears of anguish, staring unblinkingly and imposingly. The bronze skinned giant, armored in gold and silver and draped in red, stood hastily. He looks shaken. He moves shrugging off the remaining limbs that grasp onto him, shaking them off. The he speaks with a slight shiver in his tone, "What? What do you want, little monster?"

Click...

The ice is grounded and crushed by her will. She walks up to him, who stands now taller than her, and speaks, "I don't like you, and I am no monster. I am my own being. You-"

"Don't try to push me, girl," He spits the word as if it were a curse. He doesn't look into her eyes, and she could feel his suppressed dread. He stands taller than her, but he still feels as if he were below her waist. He turns away, blabbering and blustering, "What do you want? I will not help... whatever it is. Suffer Neptune's strike, pathetic, little monster. It is not even a curse worth mentioning! It is merely a simple strike! And here you suffer. Hmph! You do not deserve me." He lifts his chin and looks away again.

Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack...

Sounds of shattering ice surrounds him. The darkness washes over him and consumes him, and the last thing he hears, before his will is subverted, was the angry screeching of a thousand voices, all of them of her, "You will open yourself, everything, to me! EVERYTHING, ARES!"

A slow clap echoes through the empty wasteland that was her mind...

Clap...

Clap...

Clap...

She turns, looking around. The shard that was Ares slowly sunk into the shadows, struggling as much as he could but without end. There was only darkness here, in her soul. A voice, exactly similar to hers and sounding amused, spoke, "That was well."

"... Who are you?" She frowned.

A copy of herself, exactly like her, walked out of the shadows. Every aspect and every detail was the same. "I am you."

"... No, you are not."

"I suppose I'm not," The copy conceded rather quickly. It walked around her, circling her, giggling in amusement at something she couldn't understand. "It is well that we can talk. I am better."

She blinked at the copy.

"Better than you," the copy clarified. "I do not have these weaknesses you have, and you are weak. Look at you, it has been three years since you have awakened, and what have you done so far? You have accomplished nothing, and you are stranded in a tiny, unknown village in the middle of nowhere."

She frowned and found herself defending her actions, "I made the best of my situation. I did my best and what I could."

"Your best?" The copy laughed aloud. "How hilarious. Your actions are inconsistent, yet you keep having these weaknesses."

"They aren't weaknesses. I find happiness in them, and joy and companionship. I have learned to live amongst them, and learned what my emotions mean," She retorted again.

The copy looked down at her from above, coldly for the first time. "Don't joke like that. Live amongst them? I am better-and you are better-than these... mortals. They will expire, and they will leave a void in you. You will feel loss and weaknesses. They are vulnerabilities. Your enemies can use them against you. It is better than rule over them and reign powerful, than to stand beside them... and for what? Friendship? Don't make me laugh."

"Y-You..." She felt rage bubbling within her. How uncharacteristic, but it made sense. She had finally absorbed the shard that was Ares. And she inherited his impulsive anger along with everything else. So much...

"I see you don't believe me. No matter. We are the same, you and I. Different sides of a coin, really." She giggled again, coldly. "You will see. The darkness has no room for light. You will see, sooner or later."

She didn't say anything, but her will and her intent were known. The copy clicked her tongue and turned around, before melting away into the shadows and cackling in a mad, inhuman way that left her shivering down her spine. The world shook, and she woke, in her bed cot, and covered in sweat.

Ares... the process of consuming him would be long, but knowledge had already begun to flow into her.

...Why were there some Gods with their Greek names and why did some use their Roman names? Some of the original Greek pantheon had been killed, over the past few hundred years. There were only a few who remained. Poseidon had died, and Neptune was recreated in his image, from the belief of their worshipers and the nexus of power at Olympia. It was a process that took generations of mortals... That was all there was to it, really. Some gods died, and then others inherited their positions.

Ares had planned to fight against her, to keep his knowledge of mastering his father's lightning to himself. He didn't want to help her, especially when he was growing more powerful slowly, within her. As Mars or as Ares, he had cults and prayers and sources of power. They pooled within her, going towards him. But now, they were hers. It would be years, perhaps, before she could grasp War, and call it hers. But it is possible, for her to become a personification of War. After all, she was, for all intents and purposes, Ares now.


	13. The Hedgesorcerer's Apprentice Finale

Leaving was a somber affair.

She still wasn't quite sure why she had to leave, but Obediah would take no objections from her. He stood silently throughout the morning, watching her pack and readying herself, without a single word. When she arrived at the gates, he still said nothing.

As she left the threshold of Catania and walked into the world, she heard a whisper. She turned around, somewhat confused, and looked back at her mentor.

"Wait, girl," Obediah grumbled. He took out two, thin tomes from within his robes. They were bound by a type of scale-like leather that she had never seen before, and they were unmarked. He held them out to her and looked away, "These are the remains of my youth. Go on, take them. This is a list of all the herbs I have studied and how they can be used for potions. The other one is my experiments in alchemy."

"I..." She stared at the books. They seemed heavy, but not in weight.

"What are you waiting for? Take them!" Obediah shoved them into her hands. He turned around and grumbled under his breath, just loud enough for her to hear, "And come back alive."

"... I will," She replied, knowing that Obediah wouldn't hear her. She blinked away the pesky droplets that seemed to be clouding her vision and repeated louder, "I will return!"

"Hmph!" Obediah harrumphed as he walked away.

Traversing the forests was an easy affair now, compared to then. She could skip across all the crudely laid traps of men and monsters easily, and nothing seemed to want to bother her. In fact, it seemed like things were beginning to actively avoid her. Was it just because she had a dim, golden aura? It was just a shadow of what the gods of Olympus had, and less than a fraction of a fraction of the presence that Ares had when he entered battle.

It was strange, but in some ways satisfying to know that she had come.

The battlefield under Mount Aetna was a wasteland. The stench of death was strong here, and the earth was grey and black. There were empty pools and desolate craters scattered about, with half-buried skeletons everywhere she looked. There was no life here, nothing grew on these lands. It reminded her of her beginning in Catania, when people would visit Obediah's home seeking aide and healing. In hindsight, it seemed very clear that those men and women were probably people who had looted the corpses of this field...

She looked about at the empty field and wondered how she was going to even start...

She placed the Lightning Bolt and pulled the Trident close. It had shrunk since Neptune wielded it. It was barely a harpoon now, just large enough to be unwieldy in her hands, but light. And cold. It was a tool of bronze and iron, but never rusting and without a single scratch.

She knew where Neptune had died.

It haunted her dreams for a time, before she dreamed of magic and learning. Neptune's grave was unmarked. There was nobody there and no skeleton either. There was only a shallow pool of putrid, dead water, with rotting seaweed floating at its center. She had struck him down here. The ground around the pool was still lined with dark cracks, reminiscent of potent effects of the Lightning Bolt.

The Trident was cool in her hands.

The air was so cold; it was visible around the weapon, icy and fog-like. Ice crystals began to form around the handle, and the Trident began to grow. It grew tall and its three prongs shot out from within. It sank deep and pierced the earth, blanketing the ground around it in a thin sheet of ice.

It hurt to hold it and she felt her power-her magical energy-drain from her hand.

'I am the embodiment of the piercing cold. I am the great waves that swallow cities. I am the whirlpool that devours armies. I am greater than you. Submit.' The thoughts echoed into her mind. They were cold, calculating thoughts, foreign and impossibly different. Inhuman, even.

For a moment, her eyelids fluttered, her long, golden eyelashes drooping. But she was stronger than this, and she endured and...

She didn't let go, knowing that if she did, it would mean she gave in. But falling, dying, or turning away could all mean the same, and she was not willing to fail. She couldn't afford to, with her life on the line. So she gripped onto the handle of the great Trident tightly, even as the crystalline forms of ice began to crawl all over her skin and passed her wrist.

The chilling vapors gathered before her and the Trident began to radiant with its cold power, causing wind to swirl around her and droplets of ice, cold water to gather all over her.

From the watery grave of Neptune, ice began to grow as the vapor set in. The shadowy silhouette of a man taller than her formed before her. It was a powerful figure, strong and overwhelming in presence. One hand reached out of the mist of ice and gripped onto the Trident, just above her hand. It seemed like the man was trying to pull the weapon away from her, but she latched on, and their auras began to clash in a bright spectacle.

Around her swirled shadows, clawing, scratching and biting at the mist...

...and around the man, the mist condensed so thickly, that it felt like floating ice. It was hard to see through it, but as the mist began to coalesce into a glowing, blue and white aura of power, she saw it. She saw him.

He stood three heads above her, with a barrel-like chest covered in black hair. His arms were like tree trunks, and they too were covered in long, tangled hair. He had a head full of dark, curly locks, coupled with a face full of thick beard, both only slightly lined with silver hairs. And a crown of reef and bone adorned his head, making a shadow over his piercing, blue eyes. His was a deadened glaze, but she saw it well.

It was Neptune-or a close replicated facsimile of the god-and his power raged against hers.

They clashed, between the divine power of the Trident and her own well of power. But she was not without tricks. She knew that this was not truly Neptune, but it was in fact the avatar of the spirit within the Trident. It was a being of power, yes, but it was in particular a personification of ice and water. And she knew that while every second the Trident bit at her a thousand time through the ice covering her hand, she was drinking in the Trident's power in the form of the mist around her.

'Give in.' The Trident called to her in its otherworldly, echoing voice.

"No," she growled, gripping tighter and tighter. Her hand was numb with cold, but she could still feel her blood flowing and pumping.

'Give in!' The Trident called again, making the very air so cold she could not breathe without cutting herself with the tiny shards of ice that surrounded her.

"No!" She replied again.

"GIVE IN!" The manifestation of the Trident, the shade of Neptune, yelled at her, its deathly spittle flying like arrows.

She reigned in her power and let it explode around her, even as the incantations for Cure and Recovery were on her lips, "NO!"

Her vision was consumed by light. There was an explosion, caused by the clash between their powers.

She fell back as thousands of shards of ice scattered about piercing her clothing and her skin. She bled from a dozen places at the very least, but they were all small, shallow cuts, compared to what she had experienced before. She could heal them easily, enough... but the realization of what happened quickly sunk in as she shook her head to clear it of the ringing left by the explosion.

She had lost. Failed.

Against the power of divinity, could she not measure up? She felt ashamed and angry, and she wanted to try again. She could do better, pour everything into it. She could...

The towering being that was the shade of Neptune loomed above her, and it called out again, "GIVE IN TO MY WILL!"

"I... will... not! I am my own being! My will is my own! You shall not have me!" She pushed again, throwing everything she had at Trident. Everything, everything, everything. Come, Ares. Come, Typhon. Come all of her power, she gritted her teeth and growled in a primordial rage. Her hand shot forth again and she found her grip on the Trident cold and slick. But it was not cold-she didn't allow it to be. "Fire, fire, fire!"

The element of fire surrounded her as she pressed everything into this strike.

At first, only small wisps and sparks could form in this atmosphere so freezing that even her breath would freeze and fall to the ground. But then fire spread from her fingers and covered her hand, spread faster than it would on alcohol. And the fire grew. It grew large like a bonfire, pushing away the cold and evaporating the wetness.

The fire expanded still, feeding on her magical energy and converting into an aura greater than the shadows. Soon she was entirely consumed by a flame that was just far enough to lick her clothes. She was a bonfire, towering above treetops. She was a beacon in the mist... and she...

...She felt so tired. her eyes began to droop, even as the shade of Neptune began to screech and fade.

A tired, triumphant grin grew on her face and she uttered, "From this day to my last day, you are mine! I am your master and you will heed my will. Answer me, O Spirit of the Trident!"

Her grip began to shake. For a single second, she thought it was because she was slipping, but then she realized that it was because the Trident was vibrating. It was shaking. It was shivering. To her power, the roaring flames that continued to surround and burn at it. The metal felt hot and grew hotter still. The tips of the Trident began to glow...

'This Trident concedes, from this day until your last day. It acknowledges you; your will is its will.' The cold thoughts echoed through her mind, but it was like an angry tide, crashing against her mind. She reeled back and nearly lost her grip-

-What was in her hand was no longer a Trident. It shrunk and shrunk, in accordance to her will, to better fit in her palm. It was barely a stick, only as long as the distance from her elbow to her wrist. And it began light too. Like a tool of magic, perhaps.

She stared down at it, and then fell to her knees.

There was... she felt as if she had no energy left at all. Left without a source of fuel, the fires around her dissipated. "I feel woozy," She muttered with a silly grin on her cheeks. Ah, it hurt a little to smile so widely. She fell on her bottom, and then fell on her back. "Phew..."

...And then the earth crumbled, swallowing her whole.


End file.
